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THE MATING OF THE 
BLADES 



THE MATING OF THE 
BLADES 


By 

ACHMED ABDULLAH 

M 

'Author of ^^The Trail of the Beastf^ *‘The Man on Horse- 
hack” etc. 


NEW YORK 

THE JAMES A. McCANN COMPANY 
1920 




Copyright 1920 by 

" THE JAMES A. McCANN COMPANY 
All Rights Reserved 


* 

H 



©CI,A601S86 ^ 



Printed in U. S. A* 


TO MY FRIEND 
JAMES A. McCANN 
WHO ALSO PUBLISHES MY BOOKS 

















THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


CHAPTER I 

A prologue—yet quite necessary to the tale—switching incon¬ 
gruously and illogically from the heart of Asia to the gray heart 
of London Town. Also introducing a dead Ameer, two oily, 
shuffling Babus out of Bengal, and a sandy-haired gentleman 
who likes the view of Pouftney’s Inn. 

Thus, on an auspicious day in the dark half of the 
sacred month of Dhu’l-Hijja, did they bear to his last 
resting-place Syyed Mazud Mirza Ahmet Nazredeen 
el-Arabi el-Husseinyieh Kajar Gengizkhani, Ameer of 
Tamerlanistan and thirty-ninth of his dynasty, while 
the women wailed and beat their breasts, while the 
conches brayed and the tomtoms sobbed and reed pipes 
shrieked, while white robed, green turbaned Moslem 
priests chanted the liturgy, and while the smoke from 
many ceremonial fires ascended to the lapis blue sky in 
thick, wispy streame’rs and hung in a ruddy, bloodshot 
cloud that lit up the palace and told to all Central Asia 
that the last male member of the Gengizkhani family 
— Zi'l-Ullah, “Shadow of Allah,’’ was their arrogant, 
hereditary title—^had gone to join the spirits of his 
kinsmen in the seventh hall of Mohammed’s paradise. 

Out of the palace, that crowned the basalt hillside 
with turrets and bartizans and bell-shaped domes and 
1 


2 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 

swung down into the dip of the valley with an ava¬ 
lanche of bold masonry, they carried the dead Ameer; 
through the western gate, a crumbling marble struc¬ 
ture, incrusted with symbolistic figures and archaic 
terra-cotta medallions, and topped by a lacy, fretted 
lotus-bud molding; through the maze of the town, 
with its crooked streets, its Idw, white houses, its cool 
gardens ablaze with peach and almond and scarlet 
flowering peepul trees; through the main bazaar that 
stretched like a Suruk rug dimmed by the Hand of 
Time into smoky purple and dull orange; on toward 
the river where the young sun had crumpled the morn¬ 
ing mists into torn gauze veils. 

Bolt upright, as during life, the corpse sat on a 
chair of state that spread up and out like the tail of 
a peacock. He was attired in his most splendid cos¬ 
tume: the arms encircled by jeweled bracelets, shim¬ 
mering necklaces of pearls and garnets and moon¬ 
stones and yellow Poonah diamonds hanging to the 
waist shawl, a huge, carved emerald falling like a 
drop of green fire from the small, twisted turban, the 
face painted and powdered, the pointed beard care¬ 
fully curled and dyed a vivid blue with indigo, between 
his feet his favorite kalian waterpipe, an immense af¬ 
fair of iron, inlaid with gold arabesques and studded 
with uncut rubies. 

Almost grim, by contrast, was the naked, straight, 
six-foot blade which lay across his knees. Simple, it 
was, blue-gray, without engravings or ornaments of 
any sort. 

All the dignitaries of the land were there to speed 
his soul. 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


3 


There was Tagi Khan, Master of Horse, in purple 
silk, his wicked, shriveled old face topped ludicrously 
by a coquettish turban in pale cerise, beard and finger¬ 
nails dyed a bright crimson with henna; Koom Khan, 
the sipar salar —the commander-in-chief, who had left 
behind his silver-tipped staff of office and was holding 
in his bony, brown right hand a large cluster of those 
dark violet lilies which the Persians call First Bom 
Buds, to put upon the grave.; the Sheik-ul-Islam, in 
green silk from head to foot, a miniatur’e Koran bound 
in red and silver Bokharan leather stuck in his waist 
shawl; Gulabian, the Armenian treasurer, in sober 
black, fur capped; Tugluk Khan, the court architect, 
thinking morosely that his last work—^the mausoleum 
of olive-veined Yezd marble which would house the 
Ameer by the side of his ancestors—was done. 

Came Nedjif Hassan Khan, governor of the east¬ 
ern marches, whispering to his twin brother and worst 
enemy, the sheik Abderrahman Yahiah Khan, gov¬ 
ernor of the western marches; came pipe bearer and 
slipper bearer and fan bearfer; the palace eunuchs, 
huge, paunchy, plum-c*olored Nubians, arrogant, 
sneering; the chief executioner in motley red and 
black; and many, many others, with*bowed head and 
dragging feet, in token of mourning. 

Too, envoys from the neighboring lands; from the 
East, the Ameer of the Afghans, until thirty years 
earlier the hereditary foes of the Tamerlanis, had 
sent his youngest brother, Nasrullah Nadir Khan el- 
Durani; Persia was fittingly represented by lisping, 
mincing Mirza Markar Khan, who ogled the women, 
old and young, veiled and unveiled, as the cortege 


5 


iTHE MATING OF THE BLADES 

passed through the bazaar*; the stony, cruel North had 
sent Bokharan chief, Khivan noble, and Turkoman 
grandee; while, fro-m the South, Sir Craven Elphin- 
stone, C.B., G.C.S.L, deputy resident at the court of 
Kashmere, slightly self-conscious, slightly nostalgic 
amidst the thousands of Asiatics, had crossed the 
Himalayas to tender the condolences of the Raj, the 
British-Indian government. 

Everybody was there, except the late king’s only 
child, the Princess Aziza Nurmahal who, according to 
the ancient custom, was sitting alone in the tower 
room of the palace harem, mumbling endless prayers 
and clicking off the ninety-nine holy names of Allah 
on her amber rosary; and the Ameer’s best, oldest 
friend and prime minister, Hajji Akhbar Khan, on 
whom, a year before his death, he had conferred the 
honorable title of Itizad el-Dowleh —'‘Grandeur of the 
State.” 

The cort^e passed on, out to the willow fringed 
banks of the Ghulan River that lay acrbss the mauve 
and rose mosaic of the town like a ribbon of watered 
silk. 

River of grim tragedies! 

River of sinister reputations; so sinister that there 
was not a Tamerlani whp ever, knowingly, allowed a 
drop of it to pass his lips! 

River which, for centuries, had been the grave of 
the thousands of Tamerianis and raiding Afghans 
massacred in the narrow streets of the city or slain 
in fierce combats outside its brown, bastioned walls. 
Sorrowing widows, disgraced courtiers, vanquished 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


5 


pretenders, and fanatical dervishes had sought the sol¬ 
ace of oblivion beneath its placid surface. Faithless 
wives and dancing girls had been hurled into its 
depths from a nearby tower that had been erected 
centuries before and for a reason known to but few 
had always been called ‘‘The Englishman's Boast." 

On the river's farther bank stood the mausoleum. 

And there they buried the last male member of the 
Gengizkhani family, while the women wailed and 
beat their breasts, while the conches brayed and the 
tomtoms sobbed, while the Princess Aziza Nurmahal 
cried her heart out, and while, in an opium shop near 
the bazaar of the mutton butchers on the northern out¬ 
skirts of the town, the Babu Bansi, a typical Bengali 
from his round, greasy, chocolate-brown face to his 
openwork white socks, patent leather pumps, and 
striped cotton umbrella, bent over the prone form of 
his countryman, the Babu Chandra. 

He made sure that the latter had succumbed com¬ 
pletely to the bland, philosophic poppy drug, pressed 
half a golden toman into the grimy, much beringed 
fingers of the dancing girl who had filled and refilled 
the other's opium pipe and, if the truth be told, had 
made assurance doi^bly sure by doctoring the sizzling, 
acrid cubes with asclepias juice and dawamesk-hashish, 
slipped his hand into the unconscious man's waist 
shawl, brought out a key, and flitted into the street 
like an obese and nervous shadow. 

As fast as his wobbly calves would let him, he ran 
to the office of the Anglo-Asian Cable Company of 
which his countryman was manager, clerk, despatcher, 
messenger, and factotum in general, opened the door 


6 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


with the stolen key, and busied himself with the tele¬ 
graph board for half an hour. 

Click-clack-clicketty-clack went his nimble fingers, 
sending a triumphant message across land and sea and 
land again. 

After which, from a mysterious hiding-place about 
h^s stout person, he drew a sharp-edged hatchet and 
smashed the delicate telegraph instruments into a 
chaotic mass of wooden splinters and twisted copper 
wires. 

Six hours and twenty minutes later, in a dingy, 
cobwebby office on the top floor of an architectural 
infamy on Upper Thames Street, just beyond the Fish¬ 
mongers^ Hall, in the reeking heart of the City of 
London, a short, stocky, blue-eyed, sandy-haired man 
stepped away from the fly-specked window where he 
had been admiring the deceptively romantic outlines 
of Poultney’s Inn. 

‘'Half a jiff, old cockywax!’" he called in answer to 
the insistent knocking at the door, opened it, and ad¬ 
mitted a red-faced, red-capped, impudent messenger 
boy. 

"Cyble, sir,” said the latter, “for—right-oh!—^party 
by name of Gloops!” 

“Right you are, young fellow-my-lad. That's our 
cable address. Hand it over. What you waitin' for? 
Eh? Tip? Chase yourself!'' 

“Aw—chyse yer own ruddy self!” 

“Out you go!” 

And the messenger boy made'a hurried and undigni¬ 
fied exit propelled by a square-toed, number nine and 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


'7 

a quarter blucher whose owner the next second opened 
the cablegram. 

''Gloops, Lon4on, England'' he read; and the mes¬ 
sage continued, in a typical Babu jumble of mixed 
metaphors and martyrized slang: 

“Regret to report old Ameer jolly well popped underground. 
But ripping old silver lining to proverbial thunderstorm. Have 
discovered bloody cinch of pinching whole bally swag if 
Gloops uses gray matter. Do not cable here as have smashed 
expensive instruments into smithereens and cocked hat to annoy 
and harass the competition. Cable instead to Teheran using 
code. Am hot-legging it there like a sizzling whirlwind. Beg to 
repeat that collaring of swag is no end of ripping old cinch. 
Am writing: particulars. Tell Gloops meanwhile should look up 
Burke’s Peerage find bally old nobility family whose escutcheon 
is double headed lion and establish with them jolly old social 
relations. 

“(Signed) Bansi.” 

‘‘My sainted grandaunt Priscilla Mary Jane!” mur¬ 
mured the sandy-haired man. ‘The whole swag! 
My word! Won’t the guv’nor be pleased though! 
But what in the name of the three-cornered dooce does 
that Bansi lad mean by his allusion to Burke’s Peer¬ 
age? Well—I fancy the guv’nor will know.” 

And he lit a rank woodbine cigarette and resumed 
the inspiring study of Poultney’s Inn, drumming 
loudly, at rhythmic intervals, on the window pane. 


CHAPTER II 


Giving an intimate but not indelicate “close-up” of an 
Oriental princess with eyes as black as grief and lips crimson 
as a fresh sword wound. There is furthermore mysterious talk 
of the Mating of Blades. 

“Heavenborn wheezed the Babu Chandra, 
squinting through opium-reddened eyes. “Seventy- 
seven times seventy-seven bundles of indignity, injus¬ 
tice, and evil abuse have been heaped upon my head! 
A scoundrel of unmentionable ancestry, limited under¬ 
standing, degenerate soul, and most ungainly body 
has robbed me of my substance! I appeal to the 
Heavenborn, the Protector of the Weak and the Piti¬ 
ful!'’—and he bowed before the Princess Aziza Nur- 
mahal, clasping his pudgy hands across his pudgy 
stomach. 

She looked at him, undecided what to say. Then 
her eyes swept about the audience hall where the 
dignitaries of the palace, from the commander-in-chief 
to the executioner, were squatting on mats, attended 
by servants who fanned them with silver-handled yak 
tails. Directly at her feet crouched her old nurse, 
Ayesha Zemzem, a Bakhtiari hill woman from the 
western wilds; lean she was and angular and brown 
as a berry, with an uptilted chin that rose defiantly 
to meet the sardonic lower lip, an immense beak of a 
nose, and eyes sharp as needle points. 

The princess sighed. 



8 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


9 


Seated in the glittering, chilly depth of the great 
peacock throne that spread above her tiny, oval face 
with a barbaric blaze of emeralds and pearls and 
rubies and star sapphires, with her narrow, diminutive 
hand nervously clutching a scepter topped by an im¬ 
mense blue diamond known as the ‘‘Sea of Light,’^ 
with that little soft vagueness about her cherry lips 
and her eyes like black wells beneath the hooded lids, 
she looked childish, appealing, rather pathetic. There 
is something sinister in the relentlessness in which in¬ 
heritance may force people into a position they are 
not framed to fill, thrusting power into their hands 
and judgments into their mouths, whether they desire 
it or not. 

Thus with Aziza Nurmahal. 

The peacock throne and the autocratic power which 
it embodied were meant for men of crunching, clout¬ 
ing, merciless strength of mind and body; men like 
her father, who had ruled his turbulent subjects with 
an iron, rather saturnine hand and with the loyal help 
of his old prime minister, Hajji Akhbar Khan, Itizad 
el-Dowleh. 

But the former was dead while the latter had left 
the country on a mysterious mission a day after 
Hakem Ali, the court physician, had decided that there 
was no hope for his master’s life. And already in¬ 
trigue was raising its flat head, was whispering, 
craftily, crookedly, in palace and bazaar and behind 
the curtains of the harems. 

It had begun with the Master of Horse, Tagi Khan, 
openly accusing Gulabian, the Armenian treasurer, of 


m 


f 


lo THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


having embezzled twenty thousand gold coins, which 
he had spent upon a nautch girl from the south. The 
Armenian had given the reply discourteous by pro¬ 
ducing three witnesses who swore upon the Koran 
that the shoe pressed on the other foot, that it was 
Tagi Khan who had stolen the money and imported 
the nautch from Kashmere, and that the latter had 
merely asked the Armenian for protection because the 
other, in a drunken fit, had threatened to split her 
pretty little nose with a dagger. At once the palace 
had divided into camps. Lies and calumnies had run 
like powder under spark. The outer courtyard had 
witnessed a murderous encounter with bucklers and 
naked blades between the twin brothers, who were re¬ 
spectively governors of the eastern and the western 
marches. The princess, not knowing if she should be¬ 
lieve the party of Tagi Khan or that of Gulabian, was 
being caught between the upper and nether millstone, 
and, finally, a few days earlier, Koom Khan, the com- 
mander-in-chief, had approached her with the arrogant 
suggestion that, since she seemed not strong enough 
to rule, she should appoint him Firman Firma —De- 
creer of Decrees—regent, in other words. 

But her pride had rebelled. The ancient Gengiz- 
khani blood had screamed in her veins. Cutting in¬ 
sults ringing in his ears, she had sent Koom Khan from 
her presence—and to-day, in all that motley assembly» 
of courtiers, there was not one whom she dared trust. 

'‘Heavenborn!” the Babu commenced again. 

She bit her lip. She blushed. 

‘T—I . . 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


II 


She stammered, slurred, stopped; and a faint, 
withering snicker ran from sneering lip to sneering lip. 
Beards dyed blue with indigo and red with henna 
wagged and mocked. Fingers ablaze with precious 
stones opened and shut like the sticks of a fan to show 
the futility of all created things, but chiefly of woman. 
The Sheik-ul-Islam chanted a sonorous **Alhamdu- 
lillahr and lifted his hands to heaven in a Pharisee 
gesture, as if to ask Allah to grant him patience: all 
signs which encouraged the Babu Chandra who ordi¬ 
narily, being a Babu, would have walked softly and 
talked yet more softly in a gathering of Moslems. 

He unclasped his pudgy hands from across his 
stomach, and stood up straight. There was now 
neither whine nor whimper in his voice as, very much 
after the manner of a latter-day, berry brown Robes¬ 
pierre, he addressed the princess: 

‘T demand justice! Here, in thy town, O Aziza 
Nurmahal, was I drugged, by a shameless dancing girl 
and by one Bansi; may this and that and especially 
this happen to him! For a week every day they 
drugged my little pipe of opium which I am forced to 
smoke because my spleen is yellow with a very much 
devouring sickness. When finally I was myself again, 
I discovered that Bansi had stolen the key to my of¬ 
fice”—which was the truth—^‘'and also one hundred 
and seventy rupees, five annas in Indian money and 
sixteen golden Persian tomans” — which was a lie. 
‘‘Furthermore, he has smashed all the so expensive 
instruments of the Anglo-Indian Cable Company of 
which I am the deservedly trusted servant. I demand 
justice, Heavenbom!” 


12 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


Aziza Nurmahal knew exactly what her father 
would have done under the same circumstances: just 
a gesture and a word to the executioner to give ‘‘one 
hundred and fifteen sticks to this pig of an infidel 
Babu who dares raise his voice in the presence of his 
betters/^ For he had been a rough man whose en¬ 
tire philosophy of government had been a rough fact 
reduced to yet rougher order and who had always 
surrendered completely to the gods of his enormous, 
pagan resolution. She, on the other hand, had been 
taken direct from the zenana to the throne room. She 
had not yet learned how to bury the poetry and the 
enthusiasms of her soft youth beneath the stony drag 
and smother of life. 

She felt the contemptuous enmity of the crowd. 

Again she stammered. Again there was a ripple 
of laughter and whispered, malign words; the Sheik- 
ul-Islam quoting with pontifical unction that power 
.without wisdom was like a cloud without rain, 
Gulabian advancing artlessly that it is impossible to 
clap with one hand alone, and the governor of the 
eastern marches pleasantly completing the circle of 
Qriental metaphors by mentioning that some people 
were horseback—while their brains walked on foot. 

And then, suddenly, while the little princess^ eyes 
dimmed with welling tears, the old nurse rose and 
pointed a crooked, withered thumb at Chandra. 

“Thou art a Babu,” she said in an even, passionless 
voice, “and tell me: who would believe a Babu—who 
would keep meat on trust with a jackal?” 

The next moment, while the Babu collapsed into 
an obese heap, she faced the commander-in-chief. 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


13 

causing the laughter that had bubbled to his lips to 
choke out in a surprised, ludicrous ululation. 

‘‘And, as to thee, remember that the mule^s friend¬ 
ship is a kick—and that thou art a mule, while thou’' 
—^her inexorable thumb stabbing toward the governor 
of the eastern marches who was trying to hide behind 
his twin brother—“shouldst consider that, the dinner 
over, an ungrateful dog values not the spoon, that, 
with the Ameer dead, thou hast forgotten how he 
picked thee, a leprous and most disgusting child, from 
the fetid slime of the bazaar gutter and raised thee to 
a high seat of dignity! 

“As to thee,” confronting the Armenian, “O thou 
cursed borrower of half-rupees, observe that a bene¬ 
fit conferred on an ingrate is a line written in 
water, while thou”—indicating the Sheik-ul-Islam— 
“wouldst do well to ponder over the Afghan saying 
that it is as impossible to make a priest speak the truth 
as to cover a kettledrum with the skin of a mouse ! 

“Away, all of ye! Out of the presence of the 
Heavenborn, O ye great cockroaches! Ye fathers of 
bad smells! Ye sons of noseless mothers! Out— 
spawn of much filth! Out—before I, a meek and de¬ 
fenseless woman . . .” 

They did not wait to hear the rest of her threat. 
The Babu leading, the Sheik-ul-Islam bringing up the 
rear in undignified hurry, his sacerdotal robe standing 
out like a flag, they ran from the room, stumbling 
over each other, while Ayesha Zemzem, turning to con¬ 
sole her mistress, found that the latter had burst into 
peals of laughter, rocking to and fro in an abandon 
of mirth. 


14 [THE MATING OF THE BLADES 

**Ahee! AhooT she laughed. “Did not the com¬ 
mander-in-chief tell me that Tamerlanistan needed a 
strong hand and a strong mind to rule my turbulent 
subjects? He was right—by Allah and by Allah! 
And it is thou who shalt be Firman Firma —Decreer 
of Decrees! It is thou who shalt be prime minister 
while Hajji Akhbar is away!’’ 

And thus it happened that, a day or two later, in 
full durbar, the princess announced that a rough 
woman from the hills would hereafter be regent and 
that she should be addressed by the honorable title of 
ZiUi-Sultana, “Shadow of the Queen.” Nor, which 
is interesting to consider, was there very much sur¬ 
prise in the bazaars. For, since time immemorial, 
have the autocrats of Asia maintained the democratic 
principle that ability is the only qualification for the 
highest services; have they stooped among the crowd, 
clutched a common soldier, a slipper bearer, a tobac¬ 
conist, a renegade, even a slave, and given him limit¬ 
less power, absolutely disregarding all the barriers of 
birth and cultivation and asking of him nothing but 
success. 

Thus it was Ayesha Zemzem who shared the 
princess’ peacock throne when, shortly afterwards, 
Babu Chandra had been granted another audience. 

This time he spoke softly. He did not mention the 
indignities which his fellow countryman had heaped 
upon him nor did he mention justice. 

“Heavenborn,” he began; then, addressing the 
nurse who was looking upon him with a chilly, un- 
propitious eye, “and thou, O Shadow of the Heaven- 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 15 

born! I have the welfare of Tamerlanistan at 
heart-. . 

^'AughrrT grunted Ayesha Zemzem, after the man¬ 
ner of an indignant camel. ‘T know, O baseborn! 
At seventeen per cent compound interest a minute, 
and a mortgage on the cow and the unborn calf 

‘‘No—no—by the Holy Trimurti I” stammered Babu 
Chandra. ‘T am a friend of this land—a friend of 
the Gengizkhani 1 ” 

‘‘Right I” came the cutting rejoinder, “and it has in¬ 
deed been said that he who has a Babu for a friend 
needs no enemy. Leave this room. ^Ve like not thy 
fat and indecent face.” 

“But—” said the Babu. 

“But—what, fat toad?” 

“I came here on business I” 

“Business? Dost thou want to buy or to sell?” 

“Neither the one nor the other. I want to—give I” 

For the first time, the princess opened her mouth. 

“Give?” she asked, with a flash of even white teeth 
and a glint of merriment in her black eyes. “Who 
ever heard of a Bengali giving aught except false 
measure ?” 

“Rightly spoken!” chimed in the nurse. “Can a 
Babu be generous ? Can a frog catch cold ?” 

But, nowise daunted by the avalanche of con¬ 
tumacious metaphors, Chandra continued that he had 
friends, rich and generous sahebs, who were anxious 
to pour gold into the land as one pours melted butter 
on rice. 

“Millions and millions of golden tomans will they 
give to thee, O Aziza Nurmahal. They will irrigate 


i6 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


the dry lands. They will bore for oil. They will de¬ 
velop coal and copper and ruby mines. They will 
cause the fruit orchards to yield ten times what they 
are yielding now. They will make all thy subjects 
rich and prosperous. All they want in return for 
such incredible generosity is”—he used the one Eng¬ 
lish word known throughout Asia— '‘a concession!” 

‘Terhaps—” began the old nurse, an eager, greedy 
light in her eyes. 

But the princess silenced her with a gesture and 
turned to Chandra. 

‘Tt is useless, O Babu-jee,” she said. “Often, dur¬ 
ing my father’s life-time, didst thou approach him 
with the same words. I know. I was behind the 
'zenana curtains, and listened. Thy countryman, the 
Babu Bansi, came to him with the same message . . .” 

“Bansi is a liar! He is a . . .” 

“Thou shouldst hear what he says about thee!'* 
chuckled the nurse. 

“Never mind,” the princess went on. “My father 
was always opposed to the sahebs and”—she, too, used 
the English word—“the concessions which they de¬ 
mand in payment of their shining generosity. He 
used to say that a concession means money—^but that, 
never, never, does it mean happiness—to us, the people 
of Asia. For—and these, too, are my father’s words 
—with every pound of gold do the sahebs bring three 
pounds of whiskey and strife and disease and unhap¬ 
piness. I shall do as my father has done—until 
Hajji Akhbar Khan, Itizad eUDowleh, returns from 
the far places. Then he, being wise and old and loyal, 
shall decide. The audience is ended, O Babu-jee I” 


. (THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


17 

*Tf only the Hajji would return!’* she said that 
night to her old nurse. 

‘Tf only he would return—soon, soon!” she sobbed, 
a week or two later, when news had come that the 
governor of the eastern marches had returned to his 
provincial capital and was suspected of intrigues with 
the Ameer of the Afghans, while his twin brother, the 
governor of the western marches, was said to be hand 
in glove with a band of Persian marauders who were 
plundering the caravans going to Tamerlanistan. 

‘Tf only he would return!” 

The words choked in her throat, and Ayesha Zem- 
zem folded her in her withered old arms. 

‘‘Do not give wings to grief, little piece of my soul,” 
she crooned. “It flies swiftly without them. Remem¬ 
ber the words of the Koran that it is the dust and 
grime which purify the great soul. Remember, too, 
the ancient prophecy of thy clan!” 

“Yes!” said the princess. “I remember.” 

From a taboret, she took the straight, simple sword 
that had rested across the knees of the dead Ameer 
during the funeral procession. Her narrow, white 
hand gripped the hilt. 

“The old prophecy!” she whispered. “ ^Out of the 
West he will come to save Tamerlanistan! Twin 
brother to the Gengizkhani through the mating of 
bladesr^’ 

She stepped to the window and looked out to where, 
above a sunset of somber, crushed pink, the gathering 
night was wrapping palace and town in her trailing 
cloak of black, shot with golden stars. 

“Out of the West!” 


i8 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


And it seemed as if the West had heard, was giving 
answer. 

A whisper seemed to come from very far, from be¬ 
yond the sunset, suffusing her soul with a great sorrow 
and, too, a great hope and promise. 

And so she stood there for a long time, listening 
to the silent whisper, looking out into the West, until 
the sun died in a sickly haze of coppery brown—de¬ 
cayed, it seemed, like the sun on the Day of Judgment 
—and the moon came up, stabbed on the outer horns 
of the world, dispassionate, calm, indifferent to* the 
heart of man. 


CHAPTER III 


Introducing the hero of this veracious tale, also his father, 
his brother, and a man whose really-truly name is Preserved 
Higgins. A sordid note is struck. 

*‘Yes, m’lud,” replied Tomps, the butler, with a cer¬ 
tain quaking complacency. 

‘‘I know it’s a bit rough,” continued the old Earl 
of Dealle out of the depths of his armchair whose up¬ 
holstery had seen better days. He leaned forward a 
little and lowered his, voice. His keen, wrinkled, 
rather wicked old face was in strange contrast with 
his homespun Saxon name: the lips thin, the cheek¬ 
bones high, the. nose hawkish,^ exaggerated, and with 
flaring, nervous nostrils, the eyes beady and black, and 
the complexion suffused with, a golden-brown tinge. 

‘‘Rather rougher on you than on me,” he went on. 
“For I have only to eat with the* creature while you 
have to wait on him, what ? But—well—^the creature 
has money, frighjtful, vulgar heaps of money, and my 
agent writes me he’s willing to plop, down a stiflish 
lot of the ready for the proper sort o’ country estate, 
with ancestral portraits and ancestral defective plumb¬ 
ing and ancestral family spook all complete.” 

“I understand, m’lud.” 

“You jolly well ought to; Tomps. For if the 
creature rents Dealle Castle, there’s a corkin’ chance 
that I’ll pay you the two years’ wages I owe you.” 

“Thank you, m’lud.” 


19 


20 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


“Therefore, treat him as if he were the Double 
Duchess—God bless her!—^herself, even though his 
name is . . . I say, Tomps, what is the bounder’s 
name?” 

“Preserved Higgins, m’lud!” 

The earl collapsed. 

“Gracious me!’’ he exclaimed. 

And from beneath his bushy white eyebrows he 
stole a glance at the possessor of the extraordinary 
name who was playing poker with two other men, the 
earl’s sons by every last sign of physiognomy, in a 
corner of the vast, funereal, threadbare* Tudor hall 
that gave on the sweet, yellow Sussex Downs, with a 
distant view of the sea that sparkled like a floor of 
emeralds. In back of the castle, toward Lewes and 
the Brighton & South Coast Railway, stretched thirty 
odd thousand acres of mixed farm and park land— 
mortgaged to the last brick, the last thatch, the last 
Tree of Heaven, the last, moss covered all-the-year- 
round—which, to* quote the earl, had been in the pos¬ 
session of his family, the Wades of Dealle, “long be¬ 
fore the Conqueror stuck his ugly Norman nose across 
the Channel.” 

Last night Mr. Preserved Higgins had motored 
down from his palatial stucco monstrosity in London’s 
Mayfair, with a letter from Redder, his lordship’s 
agent, to “ ’ave a look at the plyce. That’s my w’y o’ 
doin’ business. I looks, I tykes my choice, and I p’ys 
my tin, wot ?” 

Mr. Preserved Higgins was a remarkable man in 
more ways than one. Of course he was a self-made 


(THE MATING OF THE BLADES 21 

man. Everybody is, these days. Of course He dropped 
his /j'ches. Everybody does, these days. 

Born not far from Oxford Street, in a particularly 
odorous alley, once known as Hog Lane, which had 
given the late Mr. Hogarth a great deal of material 
for his scathing drawings, his early recollections had 
something to do with a pimply-faced, immensely stout 
woman who had called him ‘'yer bleedin’ little darlin' 
hynger’ in moments of alcoholic tenderness; to give 
him clouts on the side of the head when the barmaid 
over at the ‘'Rose and Elephant” had put too much gin 
in her good-morning half pint o*f “swipes.” His re¬ 
puted father had been a sardonic navvy who had given 
him his Christian name of Preserved in a riotous mood 
because every one of his many other children had died 
a week or two after they had opened their lungs to the 
greasy soot of Hog Lane. Fate, kindly or otherwise, 
had preserved him, and the name had turned out to be 
singularly appropriate. 

For, running away from home and board school at 
the ripe age of twelve and sailing before the mast to 
the Azores, afterwards to South Africa, he had ar¬ 
rived at the latter place at the high tide of the De- 
Beers diamond boom. Promptly he had deserted, had 
joined the South African Argonauts who pushed north 
to the veldt, and, to believe certain tales that were 
rampant in Lombard and Threadneedle and Bishops- 
gate Streets, had laid the foundations of his vast for¬ 
tune by the nefarious process called /. D. B., “illicit 
diamond buying” from thieving Kaffirs and Cape boys 
who worked in the Kimberley fields. 

Since then he had preserved and caused to grow and 


22 JHE MATING OF THE BLADES 


multiply every farthing that had ever come his way. 
Everything he touched seemed to turn into gold. To¬ 
day he was a millionaire in pounds sterling, with a 
palace in the Mayfair, a steam yacht in the Solent, 
a game preserve in Scotland, a trout stream in Nor¬ 
way, a shiny, white, flower-bordered villa on the 
Riviera, a moor in Yorkshire, a flat in Paris, and with 
financial interests that reached from Chicago to Al¬ 
giers, from Kamchatka to Timbuktu, from Spitz- 
bergen to the Falklands. “Land Development’’ was 
the slogan on his letter head; and there was a chance 
that, at the next list of royal birthday honors, if the 
Conservatives to whose party fund he was a generous 
contributor continued in power, he would become Sir 
Preserved Higgins, Baronet. 

Short he was, pudgy, bald-headed, with a full, curly, 
russet beard that was always spotted with crumbs, 
thick lips, steel-gray eyes, and a large-pored, Hebraic 
nose. He still dropped his /^’ches; made rather a 
point of it—^perhaps from a sense of inverted snobbery. 

He was shuffling the cards with agile fingers, dealt, 
looked at his hand, and slapped the man at his left on 
the shoulder with crude familiarity. 

“Come on in, cockie,” he said, “the water’s fine. 
Ten—and ten—and a pony, wot?” registering his bet 
with chips and markers. 

The one addressed as “cockie,” whose real name 
was The Honorable Hector Wade, second son of the 
Earl of Dealle, winked meaningly at the third man, 
his older brother. The Honorable Tollemache Wade 
who, like himself and like their father, was dark and 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 23 

lean, with angular jowl, high cheekbones, thin lips 
that subtended a quixotic nose, and keen, black eyes: 
altogether un-English; un-English, too, as to sulky, 
brooding, saturnine temper and sudden fits of wither¬ 
ing, black taciturnity—all mental and physical char¬ 
acteristics which tradition was pleased to blame on a 
Castilian admiral whose ship had been wrecked on the 
chalky coast of Sussex at the time when the proud 
Armada had tried issues with Good Queen Bess and 
her duffel-jerkined yoemen. 

Both brothers knew why Mr. Higgins was art 
honored guest at Dealle Castle and lent themselves to 
their share of the entertaining with good enough 
grace. They belonged to the same regiment, the 
Ninety-Second Dragoons, of which their father was 
the retired colonel and the history of which was in¬ 
timately connected with that of Britain’s Oriental 
dominions; and they thought that the verbal and social 
vagaries of the eccentric Cockney-South-African mil¬ 
lionaire would make good telling at regimental mess, 
over the famous crusty port which had once reposed 
in the cellars of Napoleon the First. 

Too, in the case of the older brother, there was a 
more strictly selfish reason. 

For he was head over heels in debt. A three-cor¬ 
nered combination of race horses, cards and a chorus 
lady who called herself Gwendolyn de Vere, had eaten 
into his resources like acid, and Sam Lewis, the usurer 
of Lombard Street, had flatly refused to renew his 
last note for five thousand guineas. Bankruptcy, dis¬ 
grace, cashiering from the army stared him in the face. 

''Sorry, my boy,” his father had told him that very 


24 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 

morning. ‘‘I can^t help you. Everything's mort¬ 
gaged except the family ghost. Play up to our Cock¬ 
ney visitor. If he takes our place for a season or two, 
ril help you out. Once more,’^ he had added, drop¬ 
ping his negligent manner as if it were a cloak, ‘‘once 
more—and for the very last time !’^ 

“Gome on in and myke your bets,” said Mr. Pre¬ 
served Higgins. “Ain’t you got no guts?” 

“I tilt that bet a pony, Mr. Higgins,” said Tolle- 
mache. 

“And a monkey!” countered the irrepressible mil¬ 
lionaire, tossing a dozen chips into the pot. 

“See you!” from Hector. 

And the game continued while the earl sank back 
into his chair and picked up a certain scandalous sport¬ 
ing paper, black on pink, which is much more popu¬ 
lar with the nobility and gentry—we shall not mention 
the upper clergy—of Merry England than Bishop 
Taylor’s “Lives of the Saints.” 

He had dozed ofY over “Old Etonian’s” comment on 
the county cricket averages when a sudden exclama¬ 
tion from Mr. Preserved Higgins startled him wide 
awake: 

“Go’blyme! No wonder I’m losin’ my plurry 
pants! S’y—these ’ere cards . . .” 

“What is the matter with them?” Hector cut in 
sternly, threateningly leaning across the table, his dark, 
hawkish features, as they came within the radius of 
the low-hanging lamp, suffused with a terrible, corrod¬ 
ing rage—the sudden, killing rage of the Wades of 
Dealle. 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 25 


‘Wot’s the matter with them?’’ sneered the mil¬ 
lionaire. “I’ll tell you wot’s the bloomin’ matter with 
them, cully! They’re marked! Somebody’s been 
cheatin’!” 

“God!” 

Hector was on his feet. He looked like a panther 
about to pounce and tear; and Higgins rose, upset¬ 
ting his chair, stepped back from the table, frightened, 
white as a sheet, yet obstinate, resolute, repeating over 
and over again: 

“They’re marked, them cards! Blyme—they’re 
marked!” and, just as the earl had reached the 
scene of the quarrel on his staggering old legs, Tolle- 
mache threw himself between his younger brother and 
the Londoner. 

“Keep your shirts on, both of you,” he said. “You” 
—^to Hector—-“unclench that homicidal fist of yours, 
and you”—to the financier—“either take back what 
you said and see what sort of an apology you can 
make, or . . 

“Or—prove it, that wot you mean? Well—^you 
high-falutin’, drawlin’, blue-blooded jackanypes wot’s 
got more cheek than ’orse sense, I will prove it. 
Bloody fine goin’s-on in your ’ouse, yer lordship,” he 
turned to the earl; “ ’ere I accepts yer invitytion like 
one gent from another, to look at yer blarsted, ruddy, 
poverty-stricken estyte and tyke it off’n yer ’ands for 
a season-or two so’s you can p’y back some o’ yer 
debts—and—-’ere—they asks me to pl’y—them pre¬ 
cious sons o’ yours—and the cards are . . 

“Prove it! G- d- you—^prove it!” Hec¬ 

tor’s face had turned a dull, coppery red. His Wack 




26 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


eyes were contracted into slits. His nostrils quivered. 
He looked more un-English than ever. 

“Right-oh, Dook!’" said the cockney. ‘T’ll prove 
itr 

And he did. 

On both the packs o£ cards they had been using the 
Kings, Queens, and Aces had been carefully marked 
on the reverse side with tiny needle pricks. 

Silence dropped like a shutter. 

Then the earl turned to the financier. 

“Would you mind stepping out of the room for a 
few minutes?’^ he asked, bowing, and speaking in a 
very low voice. “I wish to speak to my sons. Pres¬ 
ently I shall endeavor to make you a suitable apology.’’ 

Then, as the door closed on Mr. Preserved Higgins: 

“Hector, you are ruined!” 


CHAPTER IV 


In which it is proved that a thousand years of progressive 
civilization and of Christianity, meek or otherwise, have not 
yet succeeded in abolishing human sacrifice. 

Outside, on the terrace, Mr. Preserved Higgins 
asked Tomps, the butler, the way to the nearest tele¬ 
graph station; jumped into his roadster, hatless, coat¬ 
less, and was off to the village where he flustered Miss 
Prudence Hutchison, the local post mistress, tele¬ 
graph operator, and proprietress of a general merchan¬ 
dise store including everything needed from red flan¬ 
nels to sticky North country treacle, by sending a 
lengthy wire in a mad jumble of code words to an 
address in Upper Thames Street and, not content with 
having spent for it the exorbitant sum of seven and 
sixpence ha’penny, despatching a cablegram to a Mr. 
Ezra W. Warburton, 59^ Pine Street, New York City, 
U. S. A., which read: 

"Got you licked to a frazzle. What price Tamerlanistan 
now? 

"(Signed) Preserved Higgins.” 

Inside, the Earl of Dealle faced his two sons. Gone 
was his slangy, nonchalant manner, his slangy, non¬ 
chalant diction. 

‘‘You are ruined. Hector,” he' repeated, in a 
27 


28 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


strangely detached voice, neither criminatory nor 
damnatory nor even angry, but stating it as a fact— 
a regrettable fact, but a fact. 

‘T beg your pardon, sir,^’ replied Hector. ^T rather 
fancy you are making a mistake.’’ 

He half turned toward his brother, who seemed puz¬ 
zled, nonplussed, ill at ease, looking down at his re¬ 
markably well-made shoes as if trying to figure out 
something which he did not understand. 

‘Tollemache!” Hector laid a hand on his brother’s 
shoulder. There was entreaty in his accents; too, a 
terrible pity, a terrible contempt. ‘T say—^Tolle- 
mache, old chap, won’t you . . . ?” 

The other did not reply. Slowly he looked up. 
Slowly he studied his brother’s face, still with that 
same expression of puzzled, nonplussed embarrass¬ 
ment, while the younger brother turned to his father 
with an impatient gesture. 

“I don’t want to accuse”—he checked himself, and 
went on: ‘^anybody. I am trying to play the 
game ...” 

‘‘And you will play the game!” the earl cut in. 
'Tor you are my dear son, blood of my blood and bone 
of my bone. I am—oh—the word is so trite, so 
damnably inadequate—^but I’m proud of you, my 
boy!” 

"Proud—of me, sir? And a moment ago you said 
that I was ruined, didn’t you? What . . .” 

Suddenly Tollemache burst into speech, hectic, 
slurred, rather bitter : 

"I don’t understand. I don’t know what it is all 
about. They were my cards. I took them from my 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


29 

room. A brand-new pack with the seal unbroken, 
and . . 

‘‘Silence!” thundered his father. “You bad son! 
You wicked brother! You—you . . his voice 

peaked to a high-pitched, senile screech—“to cheat! 
At cards! Like a law Piccadilly cad—like some swine 
of a racetrack tout! God! To bring shame and dis¬ 
grace on an honorable English name, for the sake of 
some damned, trashy, pinchbeck jewel for some 
damned, painted London harlot . . 

“But—father! Father! Listen! I give you my 
word of honor that I . . 

“Your word of honor? You—^you cheat—^you 
swindler—you dare speak of honor?” 

“Father!” 

“No, no, no! Do not deny! Do not even attempt 
to deny! I know. Your brother knows. That Hig¬ 
gins person knows. I daresay Tomps knows. But” 
—and frothing, corroding laughter bubbled to his lips 
—“don’t you be afraid. The world shall never know. 
For—God pity me!—^you are my first-born son! You 
are the future Earl of Dealle!” 

. It had always been so with the earl, with all the 
Wades of Dealle: a drawling, slangy, ironic outer 
mask, the result of Eton and the army, beneath which 
slumbered a lawless, turbulent personality, an atavistic 
throwback to the mythical Castilian ancestor that 
would rise like a mighty wind in his brain, suddenly, 
dramatically, and scotch all sobering impulses. He 
did not give his son a chance to speak, to explain. 

“No, no! Don’t say a word. And—don’t fear! 
The world will never know!” 


30 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 

Then, after he had pushed the stammering, protest¬ 
ing, almost hysterical Tollemache across the threshold 
and bolted the door, he repeated his last wordsi 

“The world must never know. Hector!” 

“You do-n’t think Higgins can be persuaded to keep 
mum?’’ 

“Not his sort of cad. He hates— us, our class, be¬ 
cause he came up from some reeking gutter while 
we have the infernal impudence of knowing who 
our grandfathers were. I’ll try. I’ll talk to him. 
But—” 

“You think it will be useless?” 

“I know it will be. Hector! You must play the 
game. Tollemache is my first-born son. Some day 
he will be the Earl of Dealle. And it must never be 
said that an earl of Dealle cheated at cards!” 

Hector stood quite still. He stared at his father 
out of his black, opaque eyes. Something ^ naked 
reached out and touched his soul, leaving the chill of 
an indescribable uneasiness. 

“You mean,” he asked slowly, haltingly, “that—^be¬ 
cause I am the younger son ...” 

“It is our tradition. Hector! The tradition of the 
Wades of Dealle! In a way, the tradition of Eng¬ 
land : service, courage, sacrifice!” 

“Sacrifice!” TIector picked up the word like a 
battle gage. “I don’t fancy I’m worse than the 
average coward, sir. I s’pose I’ll stand the gaff when 
it comes to sacrificing my blood, my life. But—my 
pride? My honor?” 

“Yes! Even that!” 

Hector stared straight ahead of him. He was 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 31 

young, just a little over twenty-five, with all the 
world’s hope and glory and golden promise opening 
before him like a flower. Never before had he known 
the crude definitiveness of personal sorrow, personal 
grief, despair. He realized fully what it would mean 
to him if he obeyed his father. He would be kicked 
out of his regiment, his club. Society, from Aspley 
House to Lambeth Palace, from the Horse Guards’ 
Tilt-Yard to Rotten Row, from the Oval to New¬ 
market Heath, would turn its back on him. He would 
be a pariah. 

All that he understood. But it was when he 
thought of his brother that the harrow drove most 
deeply over his soul. He had always been fond of 
him; had always admired him for his skill with cricket 
bat and polo mallet; had looked up to him with boyish 
hero worship. 

And now . . . 

‘T’ll do it, father,” he said coldly; and left the room^ 

Outside, he met his brother. The latter tried to stop 
him. 

‘^Hector—^listen . . .” 

The younger man shook his head. 

‘T shall bear the blame because”—^he said it half 
proudly, half sneeringly—‘‘there is our old tradition. 
But—I do not want to see you again—ever, ever! 
Neither you, nor father—nor England!” 

“But, Hector! You don’t for a moment believe 
that I would cheat at cards, do you ?” 

“If you didn’t, who did?” came the other’s terse 
counter question, and he rushed past his brother, down 


32 TI-IE MATING OF THE BLADES 

the terrace, toward the thatched roofs of Dealle Vil¬ 
lage that dropped to the south in gold and mauve steps. 
He passed the Queen Anne garden, the coursing field, 
and the racing paddock, and stopped in front* of a 
weather-beaten sixteenth century building that caught 
the slanting rays of the western sun with deep porch 
and oriel windows, and that dead generations of 
Wades had used for a banqueting hall. 

To-day it did service for a lumber room. 

Hector opened the door, bolted it behind him, lit 
a couple of great wrought-iron lanterns that swung 
from brackets, and walked straight to the farther 
wall. 

It was covered with trophies from many lands: 
Zulu assegais; Metabele knobkerries, long gadyami 
swords from Arabia with tapering blades and clumsy, 
wooden handles; double-barreled guns from the Per¬ 
sian Gulf, the sort which the Gulf Arabs call bandu- 
kyiah hi rulayin, or '^two-mouthed guns’^; murderous 
Khyberee knives; cheray daggers from Afghanistan; 
crooked Turkoman yataghans; throwing-knives from 
Tripoli and Tunis; and many other weapons—all 
silent, steely witnesses to the warlike prowess of many 
generations of the Wades of Dealle. 

In the center, sheathed in moth-eaten crimson velvet 
studded with uncut, semi-precious stones, there was a 
short, broad blade with a silver hilt. 

He took it down and unsheathed it. 

It was about a foot long, leaflike in shape, and nine 
inches across half way between hilt and tapering point. 
Hilt as well as blade were covered with a delicate, in- 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES '33^ 

laid gold pattern that the Hand of Time had wiped 
into an indistinct blur. 

As his sensitive, groping fingers touched the naked 
steel, he had the sudden impression of if something 
in his brain was being wrenched violently loose from 
its fastenings. It was as if his entire soul life and 
soul understanding were shifting within him with utter 
completeness. At that moment, something quite 
lonely, quite ancient, and quite untamed seemed to be 
born within him, or, rather, reborn. A new percep¬ 
tion of life came to him, certain new and massive 
sensations which he felt instinctively, without being 
able to classify or to describe them. 

It has been so ever since he could remember, ever 
since, an Eton ‘‘oppidan’’ home on vacation, he had 
found the ancient blade in the lumber room. 

Whenever he touched the blade. It —that was the 
name he had given the tfnknown sensation during his 
boyhood years—would suddenly flash down upon him 
with terrific force, with the strength of wind and sun 
and sea and the stars. He would feel himself caught 
in a huge, irresistible whirlpool that swept out of the 
womb of the past, and back into the present—the 
future! 

Once he had spoken of it to his father—^he had 
been about fifteen at the time—and his father had dis¬ 
missed it with a hooting bellow of laughter and an 
unkind allusion to “growing pains—what you need, 
my boy, is more cricket and less thinking. It ain’t 
good form to think so jolly much, you know!” 

But he had always felt, felt now, that the blade had 
a meaning in his life. 


34 Jhe mating of THE BLADES 

It had a message to bring to him. A half-forgotten 
message—and—^yes!—it came out of the East, with a 
great whirring of wings. 

He shuddered. He sheathed the blade, was about 
to put it back amongst the trophies on the wall. 

Then he reconsidered, and slipped it into the deep 
inside pocket of his coat, left the lumber room, and 
returned to the house. 

He found it in a turmoil, with Mr. Perserved Hig¬ 
gins in the entrance hall, well within hearing of the 
servants’ quarters, laying down the law to the earl: 

“Harsk me to keep mum, do you, because o’ the 
scandal, yer lordship, wot? Well—it ain’t a go, old 
’un! I was cheated. Cheated at cards—so ’elp me ! 
By that there lousy son o’ yours with ’is Weedin’ airs 
and you-be-damned gryces! Gawd stroike me pink— 
but London’s goin’ to ’ear about these ’ere goin’s-on 1 ” 

And London did. 

That night, after his return to town, Mr. Perserved 
Higgins told the tale to his favorite barmaid at the 
downstairs Criterion. She repeated it to a junior cap¬ 
tain in the Blues. He told his mother who told the 
old Duchess of Clonmonnell who told all the world. 

Mayfair and Belgravia and Marlborough House and 
Hydepark Corner cackled and jeered. 

‘T say, Vic dear, have you heard about young 
Hector Wade?” 

“Rather! Disgraceful, don’t you think, darling 
Millicent?” 

“Rather rough on his nibs, the old earl.” This 
from a subaltern in the Buffs. “Stony down to his 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 35 


last farthing, I gather. And Tollemache makin^ no 
end of a donkey of himself over that chorus girl with 
the unlikely hair—can’t think of her name—Gwen— 
something or other, you know. And now Hector gone 
to the jolly old bow-wows. Frightfully hard lines on 
the old Lord-bless-me, what?’’ 

Thus the beginning; and, two days later. Hector 
Wade’s letter to the War Office asking permission to 
resign his commission crossed a letter from his colonel. 
Sir Samuel Greatorex, asking him to send in his 
resignation. 

Late that afternoon he left the house of his an¬ 
cestors and walked out on the Sussex Downs. 
Dealle Village lay before him, like a snug, gray nest 
in the yellow hollow, with the dying sun blazing orange 
high-lights and purple shadows on cottage face and 
limestone path and hatch. Then he turned east, to 
the little garden the other side of the dairy which had 
been his dead mother’s favorite place. It was a mass 
of roses, creepers as well as bushes scrambling and 
growing in their own strong-willed fashion, clothing 
stones with hearts of deep ruby, building arches of 
glowing pink and tea yellow against the dark blue 
sky, lifting shy, single, dewy heads in hushed corners. 

Slightly self-conscious, slightly ashamed of the ac¬ 
tion he picked a gloire-de-Dijon bud and put it in his 
button hole. 

Then he turned down the blue gravel path toward 
the railway station at Dealle-Plumpton Crossings, in 
his right hand a small kit bag that held the few be¬ 
longings, just simple necessaries, he was taking with 
him. 


'36 ThI. mating of THE BLADES 

He had seen his father at tea earlier in the after¬ 
noon. 

The old earl had offered him money, letters to 
friends in Canada or at the Cape. 

But Hector had shaken his head, stubbornly, reso¬ 
lutely. 

‘T want nothing, father,’’ he had said. ‘T am 
through with”—making a sweeping gesture—*'all 
this!” 

“You are through with—me?” 

The earl had stretched out a withered, appealing old 
hand. But Hector had disregarded it. 

“Yes, father,” he had replied, simply, chillily. 

And so he left the home of his ancestors, carrying 
with him nothing except the small kit bag, the ancient 
blade that pressed against his heart, and—memories. 

He left no address behind; when Tollemache that 
morning had tried to speak to him, he had turned his 
back on him without a word; and nobody saw him go, 
except Tomps, the butler. 

The latter was fingering a five-pound note which 
Mr. Preserved Higgins had given him with the prom¬ 
ise that there was another five pounds waiting for him 
if he wired Mr. Higgins on what day and by what 
train Hector Wade was leaving Dealle. He saw no 
reason why he should not earn that five pounds. He 
followed Hector at a safe distance, saw that he was 
taking the five forty-five for Waterloo Station, and 
wired Mr. Higgins accordingly. It was delivered to 
the millionaire simultaneously with a cable from his 
confidential agent in New York telling him that the 
telegram he had sent to Mr. Ezra W. Warburton, 596 


lTHE mating of the blades 37 

Pine Street a few days earlier had been cabled back 
to London, as the addressee had sailed for the latter 
place six days earlier and was just about due at his 
favorite hotel there, the Savoy. 

A jumble of news, which caused Mr. Preserved Hig¬ 
gins to do a great deal of rapid figuring and dove¬ 
tailing. 

When Hector Wade left the train at Waterloo and 
had himself driven to a small, cheap hotel in Moor 
Street, in the reeking heart of Soho, he was not aware 
that a short, stocky, sandy-haired man who worked in 
Upper Thames Street for a mythical party whose cable 
address was *'Gloops/^ was shadowing him in another 
taxicab. 

Nor was he aware that, shortly afterwards, a 
lengthy code cablegram was sent to Babu Bansi, at 
Teheran, giving the latter several intricate instructions 
with regard to a certain Princess Aziza Nurmahal who 
seemed to rule a country called Tamerlanistan. 

Even had he known, it would have made little dif¬ 
ference to him. In fact, he would not have been quite 
sure if Tamerlanistan was the name of a rug or of 
the latest American cocktail. 


CHAPTER V 


In which a russet-haired girl from New York comes into the 
tale and in which, furthermore, the blade flashes free, putting 
several low knaves to rout. 

Like many others of Britain’s leading families, the 
Wades of Dealle, though of ‘‘county” stock, were more 
intimately connected with the Orient than with the 
yellow Sussex wold where they had settled in the days 
of Hengist and Horsa. 

Generation after generation, they had assisted at the 
clouting of England’s imperial fortunes in India. 
They had fought—and bravely fought—in the early 
wars of the Honorable John Company, against Mo¬ 
ghuls, Sikhs, Burmans, Mahrattas, Persians, Afghans, 
Rohilkands, and innumerable border tribes. Hector’s 
great-grandfather had saved General Napier’s life in 
the battle of Moodkee by interposing his arm, and los¬ 
ing it at the wrist, when a warrior was about to bring 
down the togha, the brutal, crooked, short sword of 
the Sikh, on the general’s head; his grandfather had 
been one of the immortal band of heroes who blew up 
the Delhi powder magazine, and incidentally them¬ 
selves, when the 38th and 54th Sepoy regiments mas¬ 
sacred their white officers and carried the flame of the 
mutiny into the heart of Delhi; his father had earned 
the V. C. as he marched with Lord Roberts* columns 
from Kabul to Kandahar. 

38 


[THE MATING OF THE BLADES , '39 

Too, generation after generation, they had been 
born in India. Both Hector and his brother had first 
seen the light of day in some stinking, miasmic Cen¬ 
tral Indian cantonment, and they had never forgotten 
a word of the native dialect which their brown Behari 
nurse had taught them before they had learned a word 
of English. Not only that. There was, furthermore, 
an old tradition, its original cause lost in the mists of 
the past, by which every Wade of Dealle was given 
a thorough grounding in Persian, the language which 
is to the polite Moslem elements of India and Central 
Asia what French was to the European society of a 
generation earlier. 

Thus India had always been home to them. Per¬ 
haps more than home. It seemed axiomatic that the 
land which they had mulched with their blood, the 
land v/here they had fought and suffered and con¬ 
quered and achieved and died, should mean more to 
them than the soft, rational commonplaces of that 
Sussex which to-day was nothing to them but a sen¬ 
timental memory—mortgaged to the hilt. 

And it was of India that Hector thought, almost 
instinctively, as he left Waterloo Station, with the 
sandy-haired gentleman’s of Upper Thames Street 
taxicab rolling along in his wake. 

India! Rather, all the glittering, resplendent, im¬ 
probable East! 

He had not been there since he was a child, and his 
five years in the Dragoons had all been spent in Eng¬ 
lish and Irish barracks and cantonments. 

But, as his machine whirred away, clear through 


40 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


the jarring clonk of the County Council’s surface lines, 
the yelping whistle of penny steamers, the sardonic 
hooting of lumbering, topheavy motorbuses, the stri¬ 
dent tinkling of costermongers’ bells—clear through 
the thousand motley cries of gutter and pavement, 
through the maze and reek and riot of the sordid Lon¬ 
don streets, he heard the call of Asia. 

Asia—which had always given honor and prefer¬ 
ment and a square chance to the Wades of Dealle I 

Asia—the Mother—to which he turned now, in his 
hour of disgrace and despair! 

Not that these were the exact thoughts in his brain. 
For he was a rational enough young Englishman for 
all his high cheekbones and black, opaque eyes; and if 
his own, inner, secret consciousness had whispered to 
him just then that a mysterious, invisible force was 
tugging at his heart-strings and that the silent soul of 
all the East was whirring about his own soul, trying 
to edge into it, to merge with it—if his inner, secret 
consciousness had whispered to him any of these 
things, he would have entered the nearest chemist’s 
shop and bought himself a round six-penny box filled 
with Mr. Beecham’s renowned pills. 

But the fact remained that, an hour after he had 
registered at the Shaftesbury Hotel in Moor Street, 
with the sandy-haired gentleman in close attendance, 
he turned toward the Docks, East of the Tower, where 
the steamship offices are open until late at night, to 
book a passage on the first P. & O. steamer for Cal¬ 
cutta. 

Every penny he possessed in the world, about fifty 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


41 


pounds all told but for a few odd shillings and pence 
in his trousers, was in his inside coat pocket in incon¬ 
gruous proximity to the strange old Asian blade which 
he had taken from the lumber room, and he smiled 
grimly at the thought that a pickpocket would have a 
surprise in store for him if his nimble fingers went 
groping where they were not wanted. For that morn¬ 
ing, obeying a rather boyish impulse, he had sharp¬ 
ened the point of the dagger with his razor strop, and 
the red velvet sheath was worn thin and threadbare. 

Rapidly he walked down Ratcliffe Highway, past 
‘‘model tenements^^ that hide their feculent, maggoty 
souls behind white stucco fronts, past Jamrach’s world- 
famed “Wild Beast Shop’’ where the spectacled pro¬ 
prietor boasts that, on a day’s notice, he can sell you 
any animal from a white Siamese elephant to a blue 
Tibetan bear, past Donald M’Eachran’s “Murray 
Arms” saloon bar where a nostalgic Highlander sells 
the London equivalent for Athol Brose, and turned 
into Shadwell’s smelly, greasy, gin-soaked purlieus. 

Here, Wapping and the East India and Commercial 
and Victoria Docks spilled over with taverns and sail¬ 
ors’ boarding-houses and ship-chandlers’ and second¬ 
hand stores where every last mildewy curio a sailor, 
for reasons only known to himself, packs in his dun¬ 
nage, from Korean brass to broken bits of Yunan jade, 
from white Gulf corals to bundles of yellow Latakia 
tobacco leaves, can be bought. Too, men from all the 
corners of the globe; men who go down to the sea in 
ships and come up from the sea, as often as not, in 
hansom cabs to spend the bitter wages of six weeks’ 
battling with storm and rotten timbers in one night’s 


42 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


scarlet spree amongst the pubs and the girls of sneer¬ 
ing Limehouse. 

Silence folded about him like a cloak as he passed 
into deserted St. Katherine’s; the stark, humming 
silence of a great city asleep. The black London eve¬ 
ning dawn huddled the houses together in gray, shape¬ 
less groups. Lights flickered up, were quickly shut¬ 
tered. 

Then the houses whispered secrets to each other— 
secrets into the trooping shadows. . . . 

The squeaking, grating tread of some night wan¬ 
derer shuffling along on patched shoes vanished into 
the memory of sound, while the east wind came boom¬ 
ing up the Thames, trailing a mantle of diaphanous, 
ochreous fog and dimming the houses with a veil al¬ 
most of romance. 

Romance of the Docks, where brown Laskar and 
sooty Seedee-boy and yellow Chinaman finds that his 
money gives him the rollicking, ribald waterfront 
equality which the forecastle denies him! 

Romance that starts with a double drink of gin and 
perhaps a chandoo pipe in the back room of a Wap- 
ping tavern and winds up, quite possibly, in a peram¬ 
bulator with a half-breed child peeping out, wonder- 
ingly, protestingly I 

Brutal, sordid romance—romance of knife and pis¬ 
tol and thudding blackjack! 

Blood-stained romance. . . . 


'‘Help!” 

The cry stabbed through the air; shivered; choked; 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 43 

was echoed by another, a woman’s “Oh—oh—^pl—” 
broken off in midair, and followed by a gurgle, the 
sound of blows, a quick, acrid whisper in twangy 
Cockney: 

“Aw! you will, will you? Tyke that!” 

“Gawd, Bill 1 The gell’s bit my Weedin’ ’and. . . . 
’Ere—stop it, or—^go’blyme . . 

“Cough up, old cock 1” 

With the first cry for help. Hector had wheeled in 
the direction whence it had come—an alley, to the left 
and slightly in back of him that opened between the 
squatting, leering houses like a sinister, black maw. 
A moment later he had rushed into the alley. A 
dozen yards up, he saw half-a-dozen rough men, typi¬ 
cal as to peaked caps and flopping corduroys, holding 
a well-dressed, elderly man and a young girl, while 
another rough was relieving them of their valuables. 
All that he saw in the fraction of a second quite 
clearly, for a double gas jet was hanging from some 
mysterious recess over a stable postern, lending to the 
scene an unearthly light—a sheen of bluish green— 
like the blue on the green of young cabbages, the ludi¬ 
crous thought came to him— 

A second later he had reached the group, his fists 
going like flails . . . “Regular bloomin’ young Ber¬ 
serker, he was,” the sandy-haired gentleman, who was 
still shadowing him and who watched it all from the 
corner, reported shortly afterwards to Mr. Preserved 
Higgins, “and, I say, for a moment he had them 
bluffed.” 

But not for long. 


44 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


The one who was going through his victims’ pockets 
straightened up, caught Hector’s fist with his open left 
palm, and called to two of the others: 

*‘’Ere, Bill—’Enery! Lend us a ’and!” 

And the three went for Hector, employing tactics 
quite unknown to the late lamented Marquis of 
Queensberry, and it looked desperate for Hector 
Wade. 

He dodged and danced and grappled. His breath 
came in short, staccato bursts. At one and the same 
time he was trying to land blow, to parry blow, to 
sidestep kicking feet and crashing elbows, and to gain 
the side of the man and the girl, and the odds were 
against him; a rough knuckle caught him on the left 
temple, an open palm hit the point of his chin, the 
man called ’Enery dodged within the very crook of 
Hector’s powerful right arm, and grappled, the others 
closing in the next moment like hounds pulling down 
a stag. Hector felt himself seized about the chest un¬ 
der the armpits by a bearlike grasp. For a second he 
felt as if his ribs were crushing in his lungs. A sick¬ 
ening smell of gin and sweat and rank tobacco rose 
to his nostrils. His temples throbbed. The roof of 
his mouth felt parched. 

Grappling, straining, cursing, he fell to the ground, 
’Enery on top of him. Bill booting him in the ribs, 
the third man dancing about, watching his chance for 
a knockout blow. He shot his fist to Hector’s jaw, 
bending down; but the latter jerked his head back in 
the nick of time; and, the next second, with a sudden, 
hard bunching of muscles, he pinioned ’Enery’s arms to 
his sides, spread his strong legs, and tried desperately 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 45 

to pull himself on top. He was succeeding in this 
when 'Enery, with a wolfish snarl, sank his teeth in 
his ears. 

‘‘Damn you!” Hector shrieked with rage and pain. 
“You’ll pay for this!” 

And, with a great jerk and heave, he freed himself, 
sending ’Enery crashing into Bill, Bill into the third 
man, jumped back, and reached in his inside pocket for 
the ancient blade. 

He did it instinctively, unthinkingly. Hitherto, by 
the token of his English blood and training, by the 
token of an English gentleman’s strange, wonderful, 
foolish prejudices, he had still been fighting accord¬ 
ing to the unwritten Anglo-Saxon rules, had still been 
playing the game, had refused to use fist or elbow or 
Jiit below the belt. 

Now, suddenly, inside of his brain, something like 
a colored glass ball burst into a thousand iridescent 
splinters. His careful English training, his English 
restraint, his English prejudices, danced away in a 
mad whirligig of passion, and the blade leaped to his 
hand like a sentient being, flashed free of the velvet 
scabbard, caught the haggard rays of the gas jets so 
that the point of it glittered like a cresset of evil pas¬ 
sions. 

He used it like a rapier, with carte and tierce, with 
lunge and thrust and counterthrust and quick, staccato 
, ripost, pinking here a leg, there a grimy hand, and 
; ripping through tough corduroy-as with the edge of 
I a razor. 

I In and at them, with a stamping of feet, a harsh, 
^ guttural cry! 


46 THE MATING OF [THE BLADES 

On guard! Again carte and tierce and lightning- 
like feint! 

And, clear through, he had the strange impression 
that it was not his hand which was the blade's master, 
but that the blade was directing his hand, was stiffen¬ 
ing or crooking his arm as he lunged to the attack, 
or estrapaded sideways, or feinted to parry clumsy, 
ineffectual blows and kicks. The hilt throbbed and 
quivered in his hand, while the point of the dagger 
danced a mad, swishing, triumphant saraband, there, 
in the reeking, sordid London night, with the gas jets 
hiccoughing sardonically, as if the weapon's ancient, 
turbulent, wicked soul had awakened from the clog¬ 
ging sleep of centuries. 

‘"Gawd A'mighty!" yelled 'Enery. “The blighter's 
gone clean off 'is noodle I" 

And he was the first to seek safety in flight, while 
the others followed as fast as they could, and disap¬ 
peared, shouting and crying and cursing, in the direc¬ 
tion of the East India Docks. 

Hector was about to rush after them, the blood¬ 
stained dagger still flickering in front of him, when a 
golden ripple of laughter caused him to stop short 
and turn. 

It was the girl. She was clutching her companion's 
arm in a paroxysm of merriment. 

“I—oh—I am so sorry," she stammered as Hector, 
naked dagger in his right hand, reached her side. “I 
—I guess I am frightfully rude. I should thank you 
instead of laughing at you. . . 

“Jane!” said the man with her. 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 

'T know, dad. It’s wretchedly rude of me. But^ 
—again she laughed—‘'you were such a funny, incon¬ 
gruous figure—running down the alley! In your 
proper English clothes—with your proper bowler hat 
—and that murderous knife in your hand! It’s Ori¬ 
ental, isn’t it?” 

“Jane!” her father admonished again. “Where are 
your manners?” 

The girl, who was small, but strong and full- 
bosomed, with a silken mesh of reddish gold hair 
tumbling over her forehead from beneath her tight- 
fitting toque, a large, generous mouth, an impertinent, 
retrousse nose, and deep-set, hazel brown eyes, winked 
the tiniest little wink at Hector as if to say: 'We un¬ 
derstand, you and I! We are both young! And it 
was funny! Come on! Own up to it!” while her 
father thanked Hector in dignified terms. 

“I don’t know what would have happened to us if 
it had not been for your timely succor,” he wound 
up, in an exact, slightly monotonous voice and care¬ 
fully chosen phraseology which stamped him as a 
transatlantic visitor as surely as his sober worsted 
suit, the meticulous crease in his tr'ousers, and his 
shoes. 

Hector Wade did what any other young English¬ 
man of his class, self-conscious, shy, proud, would 
have done. That is, he muttered some perfectly inane 
words about it not mattering—honestly!—it isn’t 
worth fussin’ about, you know!—and tried to make 
a graceful exit. Which was rather difficult consider¬ 
ing that, in the embarrassment of the moment, he had 
forgotten all about the blade which was still in his 


48 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


right hand, and so he nearly cut his face when he 
lifted his hat. 

The result was to be expected. Once more the girl 
burst into laughter. But, at once, seeing that Hector 
was blushing and decidedly unhappy, she checked her 
mirth and held out an impulsive hand—to withdraw 
it immediately with the exclamation: 

‘^Do put that knife away 

Hector obeyed. 

‘‘Now then!” said the girl, and their hands met and 
clasped. 

“It was bully of you,’’ she went on. “Perfectly, 
thrillingly bully. And the next time I persuade dad 
to roam with me at night through this part of London 
—I made him, you see. We only got here from home 
—which is New York—a day ago. Yes—the next 
time I take him for a night stroll I shall insist on 
having you as a bodyguard—you arid that weapon of 
yours.” 

“There won’t be any next time,” said her father, 
unsmiling; and—by this time they had reached the 
corner of St. Katherine where, in the shadow of a 
doorway, the sandy-haired gentleman was hiding and 
listening—he introduced himself: Mr. Ezra W. War- 
burton. 

“Not to forget Mr. Ezra W. Warburton’s only child 
and daughter Jane!” chimed in the girl. 

Hector fumbled for a card, found none, and was 
grateful for it a moment later. For, almost at once, 
he decided that he would not tell these people his right 
name—the name which carried shame and disgrace and 
social ostracism. 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 49 

He chose the first name he could think of. It was 
Smith. Of course. Charles Smith. 

Somehow, it seemed very natural that Hector should 
forget the errand which had brought him to the 
Docks; natural, too, that he should accompany his new 
friends to their hotel, the Savoy; natural, finally, that 
he should accept Mr. Ezra Warburton’s invitation to 
come upstairs to their suite, seconded by his daughter’s 
‘‘Do come, Mr. Smith. I know you need a brush¬ 
ing down, and I have an idea you need a drink.’’ 

“I accept both with pleasure,” smiled Hector. 

There was a glow in his heart. The world did not 
seem so black after all; and it was all because of a 
girl’s hazel-brown eyes, because there was a sweet 
curve to her upper lip and a quick, whimsical lift at 
the corners. 

Had anybody told him just then that he had fallen 
head-over-heels in love with her, at first sight, Hector 
would have dismissed the implication as “bally, asi¬ 
nine drivel.” For typically English was he in this, 
that he treated the softer emotions with a scornful 
disregard, as if they were a rather vulgar convention 
submitted to by the masses of irresponsible mankind, 
which included, at least in this application, all the 
Continental Europeans and most of the Irish; also 
some of the Welsh. He did not know that this view¬ 
point was a pose in self-defense of his shyness and 
that emotional cold-bloodedness is. as a rule an affec¬ 
tation which deceives nobody. Nor did he know that 
the terrible, corroding Puritanism into which he had 
dieted himself had not altogether scotched his inmost, 
smoldering, natural passions. 


50 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


But he did know, as he followed the Warburtons 
upstairs, that in all the world there was nothing quite 
as becoming to a creamy complexion and reddish gold 
hair than a snug toque, made of the breast plumage of 
a pheasant, and a severely tailored suit of peacock 
blue serge. 

Downstairs, in the meantime, the sandy-haired gen¬ 
tleman was frantically ringing up a number in the 
Mayfair. 

‘‘Are you there—are you there? Mr. Higgins!’’ 
He talked furiously across the wires for several sec¬ 
onds. “Right-oh, guv’nor. He’s with the Warburtons 
at this very moment. Yes. Of course. It was an 
accident. Old Warburton didn’t stage that holdup 
so’s to meet young Hickamadoodle—^he ain’t that sort 
—I know. But remember—the female of the species! 
What do I mean? I mean that the old codger has a 
daughter—and, my word, ain’t she the peaches and 
cream, though! And that Babu blighter who works 
for the Anglo-Indian Cable Company at Tamerlanistan 
is Warburton’s agent, and he may find out that. . . . 
You’ll be right down? You’d better. For if that 
Babu finds out, and if that Yankee gets on young 
Wade’s buttered and marmaladed side, your name is 
. . . MUD!” he shouted into Central’s indignant ear, 
for Mr. Preserved Higgins had already slammed down 
the receiver, and was running through his genuine 
Spanish Renaissance drawing-room, past his simon- 
pure Louis Seize bed-room, into his guaranteed Neo- 
Gothic reception hall where he yelled at the Italian 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 51 

footman to tell the Swiss gate porter to instruct the 
French chauffeur to come with the Rolls-Royce. 

‘‘Step on your gas, Gastong! The Savoy! *Urry 
up, sonny r 

And shortly afterwards, the big car was purring to¬ 
ward the Embankment and to the strident London 
caravanserai where to-day the Peerag^ and the Beer- 
age, Montana Copper Kings and South African Dia¬ 
mond Magnates, Clyde Ship Builders and Omaha Pork 
Specialists rub elbows and swap drinks and lies—and 
where once the Black Prince competed in chivalry with 
the captive King John of France, and where Chaucer 
was married to the Lady Philippa de Ruet, with John 
o’ Gaunt playing ^st man. 


CHAPTER VI 


Showing, amongst other rather drab things, how the spell of 
the blade begins to work, and introducing a shrewd-eyed, gentle 
old man out of the East. 

It was known from Wall Street to Bartholomew 
Lane, from the Rue Lafitte to the Nevsky Pospekt, 
from the cotton exchange of New Orleans to the wool 
exchange of Melbourne, that there was no love lost 
between the two Land Development Kings, Mr. Ezra 
W. Warburton of New York City and Mr. Preserved 
Higgins of the British Empire in general. Not that 
their mutual antipathy was in any way national, in¬ 
ternational rather, since a good half of the former's 
backers were British, while the latter's financial co¬ 
defendants were as often as not from the more exuber¬ 
ant sections of the United States, Chicago and San 
Erancisco and Seattle and Kansas City. 

Their enmity, though it affected their business rela¬ 
tions, had not even been caused by a business quarrel, 
but by a fundamental difference in character —and that 
codified outgrowth of character called breeding. Des¬ 
tined ultimately to become as notorious, and quite as 
destructive, as the Harriman-Hill feud, it had started 
at the occasion of a dinner given by the great Paris 
banker, M. Adolphe Bischoffsheim, with the intention 
of bringing the two together, during which, in a hila¬ 
rious mood which was both alcoholic and atavistic, 
52 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


53 


the eccentric Cockney-South-African millionaire had 
poured a bottle of vintage champagne over the New 
Yorker’s bald, dignified head, exclaiming: 

’Erewith I baptize you Hemperor of Dollars and 
Cents! Drink ’earty, cocky!” 

War burton had never forgotten the '^outrageous in¬ 
sult,” as he styled it, had fought the other tooth and 
nail since then, in many a Homeric, financial battle, 
and had refused ever to see him again, Mr. Preserved 
Higgins retaliating in kind. Both men were cursed 
with a full-blown vanity, the result of their too-big 
success. In both, the selfish battle for ever more 
money and power had finally left no room for any 
outside interests, for abstract enthusiasms or abstract 
ideals; and it is an interesting commentary on modern 
financial history to consider that the congenital petti¬ 
ness of the two commercial giants—for they were 
giants—^had turned their passionate, even admirable 
crusade after success and might into a mean wreaking 
of personal malice, with the public and similar small 
fry paying the piper as often as not. 

When Mr. Preserved Higgins arrived at the Savoy, 
he knew better than to have himself announced, since 
he was sure that the American would not see him on 
any pretext. Instead, by the indirect method of his 
chauffeur and a subsidized boy in buttons, he found 
out the number of his rival’s suite, and went upstairs, 
rather an odd figure with his russet, crumb-spotted 
beard and his choice of attire which, from rainproof 
burberry coat to galoshes, was gloomily barometric 
and rationally Londonesque. 


'54 the mating of THE BLADES 

Fourteen was the number of the Warburton’s apart¬ 
ment, and Mr. Preserved Higgins pressed his ear 
against the keyhole. 

Three voices drifted through—Mr. Warburton’s 
measured, rather pompous accents, a woman’s, pre¬ 
sumably his daughter’s, and Hector Wade’s. Where¬ 
upon the millionaire, without more ado, opened the 
door, which was unlocked, with a hearty ‘‘Wot-ho! 
O’Connor, old socks!” looked for the mythical 
O’Connor, found him not at all, mumbled lying words 
about having come to the wrong room, waved an 
apologetic hand, and made as if to retrace his steps. 

It was at this moment, evidently for the first time, 
he seemed to become aware of the younger man’s iden¬ 
tity, and, having heard from the sharp-eared gentle¬ 
man with the sandy hair that Hector, back in the alley 
near St. Katherine, had chosen Charles Smith as a 
nom de guerre, it was natural that Mr. Preserved Hig¬ 
gins should come out with a part hearty, part sur¬ 
prised ‘‘ ’Ullo, Wade! An’ wot are you doin’ ’ere, 
’obnobbin’ with the Hemperor of Dollars and Cents 
and ’er Royal ’Ighness the Crown Princess?” 

He had guessed exactly right. 

For ^AVade?” exclaimed the girl. “Why, I thought 
you said your name was Smith?” 

*Hector turned a deep red. He stammered some¬ 
thing about it being rather hard to explain, and Mr. 
Preserved Higgins decided that now was the psycho¬ 
logical, also the logical, moment to play trumps. 

Quite dignifiedly, he turned to the American who, 
during the preceding, had maintained a stony silence. 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 55 

satisfying himself with pointing steadily and mean¬ 
ingly at the door after he had recognized his im¬ 
promptu visitor. 

’Arf a mo’, Mr. Warburton,” began the Cockney. 

‘^Yes, Mr.—oh—Higgins?”—chillily. 

‘‘Mr. Warburton,” went on the other, “I bloomin’ 
well knows that you don’t like me worth a blarsted 
damn—if the lydy will forgive my French—and I 
can’t say as I would die of ’eart failure if you’d kick 
the bucket to-morrow, nor ain’t I deny in’ as I’d jolly 
well do you a ’ole lot in the heye if I ’ad ’arf a fair 
chance. But”—he continued with a magnificent lack 
of logic—‘T ain’t the sort to bear a grudge. Not me, 
so ’elp me! And so I sez to you that if this ’ere Wade 
or Smith or Brown or Robinson or wotever ’e calls 
’is bleedin’ self is tryin’ to get you into a jolly little 
gyme of two ’anded poker, my advice to you is wot 
Punch sed to the young fellow about to be married: 
* Don't!* Because ’e’s a thimblerigger—a lousy card 
sharp! ’E pl’ys with marked cards, see?” 

Mr. Preserved Higgins never knew how near to 
death he was at that moment. For, suddenly, all so¬ 
bering impulses had ebbed away from Hector’s brain, 
leaving it vacant and dry and crimson, bringing him 
to the very abyss of raving, tearing, killing brutality. 

Just as suddenly he controlled himself. He relaxed 
his bunched muscles, unclenched his fists. He had 
promised his father that he would carry on the old 
tradition of the Wades of Dealle, that, to the end of 
life, he would bear his brother’s guilt. He was help¬ 
less, and he knew it. 


56 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 

But, instinctively, his eyes sought the girl’s. 

‘‘What—what do you mean ?” she stammered, simul¬ 
taneously with her father’s “Mr. Wade! Or—Smith! 
Will you kindly . . 

“Explain ?” sneered Mr. Preserved Higgins. “There 
ain’t such a bloomin’ lot to explain. I tell you ’e’s 
been kicked out of ’is club and drummed out of ’is 
regiment and broken the ’eart of ’is dotin’ father, the 
Earl of Dealle, not to mention my own ’eart, because 
’e ’as cheated at cards!” 

“Cheated whom?” 

“Me!” 

“Oh,” said the girl, “then it is a question of per¬ 
sonal malice?” 

“Call it wot you will, lydy. But it’s the truth. 
Arsk ’is nibs ’imself if you don’t believe me!” 

And, to the girl’s silent question—it was all in hei* 
eyes, the helpless, pitiful clasping of her narrow hands 
—Hector inclined his head and walked to the door. 
On the threshold he turned. He caught the girl’s eye 
—it was moist with tears and a terrible, aching appeal. 

Then words came to her. 

“Is it true?” she asked. 

“Yes,” Hector replied, steadily, and left the room, 
Mr. Preserved Higgins following. 

Like a man in a dream, he walked downstairs, out 
of the hotel and into the street that stretched from the 
Embankment to the dim outlines of Parliament in a 
gentle curve of lights, when, at the corner, he was 
stopped by the Cockney millionaire. 

“Wade,” said the latter, “now that you see that 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 57 

you’re bloomin’ well down and bout, s’pose we talks 
business. I repeat wot I sed to the Hemperor of Dol¬ 
lars and Cents upstairs. I ain’t the sort to bear a 
grudge. And I want to ’elp you myke your w’y in 
the world, and I can give you a tip ’ow to myke oodles 
of the ready—thousands and thousands of guineas— 
guineas, mark you, not pounds! I needs a young lad 
like you. You see, there’s a country over in Asia 
called Tamerlanistan—and the young princess wot 
rules it . . 

That’s as far as he got. 

For, at that very moment, the younger man’s fist 
struck him square between the eyes. He dropped like 
a log; and, for several minutes, until the crimson- 
coated, gold-gallooned commissionaire of the Savoy 
Hotel dashed a glass of water in his face, Mr. Pre¬ 
served Higgins was oblivious to everything except a 
motley and brilliant collection of shooting stars that 
suffused his brains; while Hector, employing tactics 
he had learned at rugger football, sidestepped a police¬ 
man and an intoxicated gentleman in evening dress, 
catapulted between two costermongers, a man-o’-war’s 
man, three ladies with bedraggled ostrich plumes on 
on their hats, a Cheapside Hebrew who sold baked 
potatoes, and a sightseeing Wessex yeoman in velvet¬ 
eens, and beat a strategic retreat toward Soho. 

It was now too late to return to the East India 
Docks and find out about passage to Calcutta; but he 
was more firmly resolved than ever that he must put 
as many miles as possible, not only between himself 
and England, the England of '‘county” and Belgravia 
and the Badminton Club and the Ninety-Second Dra- 


58 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 

goons which, rightly as he added bitterly in his 
thoughts, had cast him out as a cad, but between him¬ 
self and Jane Warburton. For, quite suddenly, and 
with a sort of savage, hurtful pride, he knew that he 
loved her, that he wanted and needed her, that she 
was dearer to him than the dwelling of kings. His 
love was as his hate, like Autumn rain, the kind which 
one does not see but which one feels, unceasing, pene¬ 
trating, slightly chilling, and he knew that if she 
should ask him again: ‘Ts it true? Did you cheat 
at cards?’’ there would be the terrible temptation to 
reply: 

‘'No. I took the blame—before the world. But it 
was my brother Tollemache who marked the pack.” 

And there was the promise he had given to his 
father, and all his stiff, surly, wiredrawn moral recti¬ 
tude with which to back it up. 

‘T can never see her again!” 

He said it with a loud voice, very much to the sur¬ 
prise, followed by ribald comments, of half-a-dozen 
cab drivers huddled around a coffee stand on the south 
side of Soho Square. 

India I 

There lay the solution. Now more than ever; and 
he went straight to his shabby hotel in Moor Street 
and made ready for bed. 

The next moment he was face to face with a catas¬ 
trophe. The fifty pounds, every penny he possessed 
in the world with the exception of a few shillings in 
his trousers, had disappeared from his coat. 

His first impulse was to blame the roughs whom 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


59 


he had fought in the alley for the loss, but a short 
examination told him that, indirectly, it was the ancient 
blade which had played thief. Putting it back, he 
must have rammed it down too hard; it had bitten 
through the thin, threadbare velvet sheath, had made 
a neat slit in the pocket lining, and the money had 
dropped through. 

Not for a second did he consider asking his father 
for assistance. Not for a second did he give up his 
plan of going to Calcutta by the first steamer. 

‘Tf I can’t go first class,” he said to himself, ‘T’ll 
go steerage—Asiatic steerage if I have to.” 

And then, with that dry, rather grim humor, 
typically English in its way, disconcerting, incongru¬ 
ous, bobbing up in moments of emotional stress, 
acting as a safety valve as it were: 

‘‘You stole my money,” addressing the blade which 
flickered ironically beneath the lamp-light, “and now 
you are going to pay for it—and serve you jolly well 
right!” 

He weighed it in his hand, and, continuing his 
soliloquy: 

“I have been told that there’s nothing you can’t buy 
or sell in London, for the right price, from the Ko- 
hi-noor to a paper of Yankee chewing gum. Very 
well. Let’s see if there’s a market for thieving, dis¬ 
honest Oriental blades!” 

He had no other valuables. His watch was a simple 
silver half-hunter; and the few shillings in his trousers 
were just about enough to pay for his room and per¬ 
haps a drink. He decided that he needed that drink 
right now, and went down to the old-fashioned saloon 


6 o [THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


bar with its two or three dozen oaken, strong-backed 
chairs that stood round against the farther wall, each 
fitted with its genial occupant—cab drivers and small 
tradesmen of the vicinity; the black settle where the 
pompous landlord presided and gave his opinion on 
politics, cricket, and the lamentable shortcomings of 
the County Council; the neat, sanded floor; the small, 
round window high up on the wall, with a wheel venti¬ 
lator in one of the panes. 

‘"A mug of bitters,’' he called to the bar maid, sat 
down, and picked up a copy of the Times which a 
former occupant of the chair had left. 

Idly he turned to the second page. Square in its 
center was a large advertisement printed in heavy, 
extravagant Gothic type. He read, read again, sat up 
straight, tore off the page, crammed it in his pocket, 
and rose. 

*T say!” he shouted excitedly to the bar maid. 
“Never mind that mug of bitters!”—and he picked up 
his hat and ran out of the saloon bar, the hotel, and 
away across Soho Square as fast as his legs would 
let him, while the landlord looked after him, open- 
eyed, open-mouthed. 

“I don’t know wot this ’ere young generytion is 
cornin’ to,” he said, disapprovingly, to his neighbor, 
Tom Jenks, the glazier. “Well—never mind—Lloyd 
George, as I was a-sayin’ of just now, will ruin Eng¬ 
land as sure as . . 

Hector, meanwhile, had come to a stop beneath a 
lamp post that squinted down on the oozy London 
pavement with a yellow, arrogant eye. 


fTHE MATING OF THE BLADES 6i 


He took the advertisement from his pocket and read 
it over again. 

It v^as short and to the point: 

‘‘Blades bought! Oriental blades! Top prices paid for the 
right sort! OPEN FOR BUSINESS DAY AND NIGHT! 

“Ali Yusuf Khan, 356 Coal Yard Street, Drury Lane.” 

‘'Open for business day and night thought Hector. 
"Well—it seems that Mr. Ali Yusuf Khan is as anx¬ 
ious to buy them as I am to sell this particular one.'^ 

He caught a green bus, dropped off at Drury Lane, 
and turned into Coal Yard Street, that ancient, crooked 
alley still fragrant with memories of Nell Gwynne and, 
too, with the names rather less ambrosial, of Jack 
Sheppard and the Round House. 

It was deserted but for a mangy, guilty looking 
tomcat, and the nearest lamp post was at the corner 
of Drury Lane. ' But a full, golden moon was in the 
western heaven, and Hector Wade found Number 356 
without trouble, in the middle of a packed, greasy 
mob of low, sixteenth-century houses that rose sheer 
from the pavement, with leaded windows protruding 
like bastions, with wrought-iron scrapers and yawning 
cellar hatches and overhanging, buttressed angles of 
walls that in the course of time had become bow-legged 
and knock-kneed. 

A flickering, neurotic gas jet lit up a fly-specked 
display window. But there were no swords nor dag¬ 
gers of any sort; only a large square of pasteboard 
which echoed the newspaper advertisement: 

“Blades bought. At all times of the day and night. Ring 
bell at left.” 


62 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


Hector pulled the frayed rope. Came a brushing of 
feet on a rug inside, and the door of the shop sprang 
open to disclose a very old, very tall, white-bearded 
Oriental who peered from beneath bushy brows with 
shrewd, patient eyes. 

“Be pleased to enter, saheb,'' he said, in halting 
English and a slurring, foreign accent. 

Hector smiled. 

India? Asia? 

Why! It began here, in the gray heart of London! 
And so he dropped into gliding Hindustani, the 
language which his Behari nurse had taught him and 
which he had never forgotten. ' 

''Apanan duari/' he said, the wordg' coming 
smoothly, evenly, without the trace of an accent, 
‘'kukoro hariyar, ya sheik T 

Ali Yusuf Khan smiled in return. But he shook 
his head. 

“No, no!” he continued in his halting English. “I 
am no—ah—Hindu. I speak—Persian.” 

“So do I!” rejoined Hector in the latter language; 
and the other, with sudden excitement, took him by the 
arm and pulled him across the threshold into the 
shop that lay beneath a fretted Damascan brass lamp 
in a mass of delicate purple and heliotrope shadows. 

“Good, by Allah!” he exclaimed. “I am an old 
and very stupid camel. I cannot twist my withered 
tongue around the language of the foreigners.” 

He waited courteously till Hector had taken a seat. 

Then, anxiously: 

“You have come to—^buy a blade, sword or dagger 
or yataghan?” 


iTHE MATING OF THE BLADES 63 

‘'No. I have come to sell . . and, with English 
directness, pulling the ancient weapon from his pocket, 
^Hhisr 

Ali Yusuf Khan picked up the blade and looked at 
it. At once a tremor ran through his body. His 
hand shook as if with palsy. But he controlled him¬ 
self, went to the corner of the shop, lit another lamp, 
and examined the dagger minutely. 

Finally he turned. 

“You—” he asked, staring straight at Hector, “you 
say you want to sell—this 

“Yes.’’ 

“Where did you get it ?” 

Hector flared^up. 

“Look here,” he said, “if you’re trying to insinuate 
that I came by it through dishonest means . . .” 

“No, no.” Ali Yusuf Khan was stern, domineer¬ 
ing. “Answer me, saheb. Where did you get it?” 

“Well—if you must know—it has always been in 
my family’s possession.” 

“Always?” 

“For centuries. My father told me once that one 
of my ancestors brought it with him from Asia hun¬ 
dreds of years ago.” 

“You—^you know nothing else about this weapon— 
a legend ? Perhaps a tradition ?” 

“No.” Hector was getting impatient. “Look here 
—I didn’t come here to be cross-examined. I saw 
your advertisement, accepted it in good faith, 
and . . .” 

"Why do you want to sell it?” cut in the other. 

“Why?” Hector laughed, shortly, disagreeably. 


64 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


‘‘You’re inquisitive, aren’t you? But—all right—I’ll 
tell you. I want to sell it because I need money, be¬ 
cause I am through with England, with my family, 
with—oh—everything! Because I want to go to Cal¬ 
cutta, to Asia, on the first ship. Now—^tell me—^how 
much money will you give me for it ?” 

‘T shall not buy it 1 ” 

“You—^you mean to say . . 

“Wait! But I shall lend you money on it.” 

“How much?” 

And then Ali Yusuf Khan’s answer, soft, low: 

“As much as you want, saheb. A hundred guineas! 
A thousand! Ten thousand! It is for you to say!” 


CHAPTER VII 


Striking a simon-pure romantic note, showing, as it does, 
or rather tries to do, that a blade can have a soul. Also giv¬ 
ing another glimpse of the charming young Oriental princess 
whom the reader has doubtless forgotten by this time. 

Years later, when The Honorable Hector Wade 
spoke of that period of his eventful life, he would add, 
by way of ruminating, psychological commentary, that 
the home-spun self-possession in which he considered 
Ali Yusuf Khan's offer was really the strangest part of 
the whole incident. 

‘Wou musn't forget," he would add, 'ffhat I carried 
a chip on my shoulder and was as quick to smell offense 
as a mouse smells cheese. The whole sordid, miser¬ 
able affair was only a few days old, and I hadn’t been 
in London more than seven or eight hours. But you 
know how it is, how you don’t meet people when you 
want to meet them, and how they seem to pop out 
of the nowhere when you want to avoid them. There 
was—what was her name? Oh, yes. Victoria de 
Bunsen, girl I used to dance with, and, of course, I 
ran into Vic at Waterloo Station. She was with 
Jamie Black of the Highland Light Infantry, a sort 
of second cousin of mine, and both cut me dead, sent 
me to Coventry, greeted me with an emphatic chorus 
of unfeigned, contemptuous silence. 

‘‘And, on the train up from Sussex, I had seen a 
copy of Reynolds' Weekly. They had stuck my pic- 


66 JHE MATING OF THE BLADES 

ture on the front page with a border all round of cards 
and dice and diaphanously dressed chorus girls and a 
jolly old headline about ‘Younger Son of Earl of 
Dealle Implicated in Disgraceful Card Scandal/ I 
fancy you can imagine the rest. So I was rather thin- 
skinned. Noli me tangere —show’s that for Latin? 
Everything touched me on the raw, and I was more 
afraid of people's pity than of their contempt. You 
can sidestep contempt by shutting up. \ But pity . . . 
Why, it leaves you helpless. 

“And then Ali Yusuf Khan's offer. As much 
money as I wanted, and yet it did not seem like 
charity. It seemed perfectly proper, and sort of on 
the cards, you see, preordained. Kismet, and all that, 
that at a moment's notice, at midnight, a few doors 
from Drury Lane, a mysterious incarnation out of 
the Arabian Nights whom I had never seen before 
should offer to lend me an exorbitant sum on a dusty 
old sword whose blade and hilt was inlaid with a 
blurred gold pattern. Rum, don’t you ^ink?” 

“As much as you want, saheb,” repelited YhFT)ld 
man. “It is for you to say.” 

Hector was about to suggest fifty pounds, the 
amount that had dropped from his pocket, when he 
had a sudden revulsion of feeling. He took the blade 
from the other’s hand. 

“No!” he said, steadfastly. “Come what may, I 
shall not part with this. It would be like parting 
with . . .” he slurred and stopped; blushed slightly. 

“Like parting with a piece of your soul ?” the Asian 
gently suggested. 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 67 

Hector inclined his head. 

‘^Yes,” he said. “It would be like giving up some¬ 
thing that I have waited for . . . through the cen¬ 
turies . . 

He stood there, staring into the fretwork of delicate 
purple and heliotrope shadows that cloaked the room 
like a silken veil. 

In the corner was a pedestal of ebony and nacre 
which supported a great Persian incense bowl. Heavy 
smoke clouds floated and twisted about like a vapor¬ 
ous, gigantic furnace of opal colors wreathing up to 
the ceiling, with a hot, honey-sweet scent of lilies and 
lotus buds and sandalwood, and it seemed to Hector 
as if he were on the borderland of dim, half-forgotten 
things, on the frontier of a new life—new, yet, some¬ 
how, subconsciously remembered—which was remote, 
not in years nor in distance, but in codified, standard¬ 
ized principles of civilization, from the life, the per¬ 
sonal experiences, the very physical and psychical re¬ 
actions he had known heretofore; as if the ancient 
blade that was throbbing in his hand were a guidon 
pointing the way to a Life of To-morrow beside which 
his Life of Yesterday and To-day faded to a wretched, 
meaningless dream. 

It was like a rush of giant splendor that threatened 
to overwhelm his mind, his sober, prosy, saving Bri¬ 
tish commonsense and prejudices. . . . And then, out 
of the trooping shadows where Ali Yusuf Khan had 
squatted down on a heap of pillows, came the words, 
in gentle, purring Persian: 

“Take the money, saheb, and keep‘the blade. No, 
no, no!” as Hector, recalled to earth, was about to 


68 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


flare up. '"You must forget your petty, withering 
pride. Go where your heart calls you. Follow the 
feet of your soul . . . out there! to Asia I” 

And he rose, crossed the shop, drew up the window 
blind with an impatient gesture, and pointed to where 
already the moon was growing fainter and fainter 
and paling into the drab cosmos of the London morn¬ 
ing and where, low in the eastern heaven, between the 
ragged cleft of Drury Lane, the sun was rising like 
a ball of somber, crumpled rose-pink. 

Then, as if the sordid glimpse of London had 
broken the spell, he added: 

am not altogether unselfish. You see, saheb, I 
am an Asian, and Asia is old and worn and tired. It 
needs fresh, strong blood. It needs men like your¬ 
self. We do not need the sahebs who simply go there 
to make money and who return to their own country 
to spend it. We need men who are willing to be one 
with us—unhappy men to whom their own country 
denies a chance. Here! Call it a loan!’’ 

He drew a purse filled with sovereigns from the 
voluminous folds of his waist shawl and gave it to 
Hector, who weighed it in his palm and laughed, rather 
disagreeably. 

“All right,” he said. “I agree to the bargain. But 
I give you fair warning you’ll lose by it. I thought 
of going to India even before I read your advertise¬ 
ment. But—sober second thoughts . . he shrug¬ 
ged his shoulders. “It’s really useless, you know. 
India is only an imperial suburb after all. It’s just 
around the corner from Belgravia and Bond Street 
and Marlborough House. I—oh—I am mixed up in 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 69 

a scandal over here, and every scandal that reeks in 
the London Westend stinks to heaven by the time it 
reaches Calcutta and some deputy assistant commis¬ 
sioner’s mother-in-law’s ear—and tongue. I have not 
the fluttering ghost of a chance in India.” 

“India is not the only land East of Suez,” the other 
rejoined gently. 

“I know. But it is the only part of Asia where I 
would fit in. I was born there, and my people have 
lived for generations between the Himalayas and Cape 
Comorin. I know all sorts of people there, in the 
army, the civil service, and, of course, they’ll give me 
the cold shoulder as their brethren do in England— 
not that I can blame them for it. But what’s the use? 
I have half a mind to go West, to Canada, instead of 
East, and so . . .” 

He was about to toss the purse on the low taboret, 
when Ali Yusuf Khan stopped him with a stiff, wooden 
gesture and a show of flaming passion. 

“I thought you were a gentleman—an English 
gentleman!” 

“I am 1 ” quickly, boyishly. 

“Then liye up to your bargain. You took the 
money. Now you must go.” 

“But don’t you understand? I don’t want to bore 
you with the whole, long, mean story of the particular 
scandal in which I am mixed up. Wouldn’t interest 
you anyway. Only—I tell you I haven’t a chance 
over there.” 

“You have something else!” 

“What?” 

“The blade!” Ali Yusuf Khan’s words came out 


70 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 

with a tremendous, cold enthusiasm. “The blade!” 
he repeated, in a hushed, flat voice. 

He picked the weapon up and pressed it to his lips. 

“The blade will never fail you, saheb,” he went on, 
“though men will and women may. Its soul is old— 
old and wise and strong and just a little cruel —and 
loyal, for it came out of Asia. The rest . . . ruan 
and woman—^your friends? What do they matter? 
For you know the ancient Persian saying: ‘Let none 
confide in the sea, nor in whatever has horns or claws, 
or who carries deadly weapons; neither in a king, nor 
in a woman, nor in a priest.' But this blade you can 
trust 1” 

“Hm ... it has played me one dirty trick already,” 
Hector smiled grimly, reminiscently. “It cut through 
my pocket and lost me my money.” 

The other, too, smiled. 

“Not the blade, saheb, but the sheath. The sheath 
is old and tired, like Asia, like my own country. And 
so we will give the sword a new house in which to 
throb and pulse and weave mighty spells.” 

For several minutes he rummaged in a carved san¬ 
dalwood box, finally drawing out a jewel-studded 
shagreen scabbard into which, slowly, carefully, with 
his back to his visitor, he fitted the weapon. 

“Here, saheb. Never draw the blade in sport, nor 
in a wrong cause. But trust it. It will speak to you 
when man fails you—or Fate!” 

He said it with a certain note of finality; and Hec¬ 
tor muttered clumsy words of thanks and walked out 
into the gray, haggard London morning. 

The great beast of a city was already stirring its 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 71 

steel-and-concrete limbs with the dull rubbing of 
tackle and rope and crate, the symphony of more 
tongues than Babel ever knew of. Trucks and buses 
rumbled past. Trolley cars shot in all directions, clank¬ 
ing and shrieking. Trumpeting automobiles whirred 
by with gleaming brasses. An odor rose from the 
pavement as of sweat and blood and singed shoe leather 
—the odor of hectic, neurotic, ever hustling Europe— 

And, over to the southeast, were the Docks—the 
wash and heave of the outer sea—India—^Asia . . . 

Hector hailed the first taxicab. 

‘To the Peninsular & Oriental Steamship office,'' he 
directed. 

“A bit early, guv'nor, ain't you? Them city chaps 
don't open shop until they 'ad their nine o'clock nip 
of B. & S." 

“That's all right.” A wave of glorious impatience 
was surging through Hector's soul. “I shall wait out¬ 
side the steamship office. At least I’ll imagine that 
I can smell India there.” 

“Right-oh, guv'nor,” said the impassive driver; 
then, to himself: “Bloomin' rum go, I calls it. Smell 
—India! What the ” 

And “bloomin' rum go” were the words which 
Sergeant Horatio Pinker of the metropolitan police 
was just then whispering into his martial black mus¬ 
tache as, passing through Coal Yard Street, he saw 
a light in Ali Yusuf Khan's shop, found the door 
blinds drawn up, and looked in, as the city regulations 
and his private curiosity prescribed. 


72 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 

‘T don’t think the old josser’s exactly a crook/’ he 
reported to Police Captain Hodges half an hour later. 
‘‘But—my word! He fair gave me the creeps. 
Standing there with his arms above his head like—like 
—oh—one of them red plush monkeys on a stick we 
used to play with when we was kids—and his whole 
body swinging to and fro—and the expression on his 
face! Looking straight at me he was, but never saw 
me, no, sir! Looked through me, that’s what he did. 
And then—well”— Sergeant Pinker coughed, and 
continued a little diffidently, like a man who knows 
that his word is going to be doubted—“he goes some¬ 
where in the back of his shop, and I hears a snick 
and a twirl as if he was opening a safe, and back he 
comes and round his scrawny old neck he wears a 
necklace with about fifty diamonds each as big as my 
thumb-nail . . . and I knows twinklers! I knows 
when they’re glass and when they ain’t. I used to 
walk the Bond Street beat, sir, and I tell you them 
pieces of ice is worth a cool hundred thousand pound 
sterling and . . . No, sir I” indignantly, “I signed the 
Good Templar’s pledge over three years back. No! 
I had nothing all morning except a cup of that hog 
wash Harry Snooks sells over at his stand near Drury 
Lane and calls it coffee—^blast his eyes! Well—to go 
back to that Oriental josser—a jolly rum go, that’s 
what it is . . .” 

“Well, sergeant, keep an eye on him.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

And that night, sipping his stone ginger at his 
favorite tavern, the Running Footman near Berkeley 
Square, he spoke about it to his friend Jimmy Haw- 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 73 

den, reporter—though he was still youthful and un¬ 
sophisticated enough to call himself special writer—of 
the Daily Chronicle who in turn, dropping in at Dolly's 
Chop House for a bite, an hour later, mentioned it to 
a sandy-haired gentleman—who whistled and snapped 
his fingers. 

Meanwhile, had Sergeant Horatio Pinker trans¬ 
planted his astral body via the Magic Carpet route a 
matter of a few thousand miles east and looked, like 
the Devil in Madrid, through the bulbous, painted 
dome of the palace at Tamerlanistan, he would have 
seen the Princess Aziza Nurmahal facing a clam¬ 
orous, mutinous, sneering mob of courtiers and sol¬ 
diers and palace officials grouped, respectively, about 
the black-robed, fur-capped figure of Gulabian, the 
Armenian treasurer, and Tagi Khan, Master of 
Horse, resplendent in peach-colored trousers, loose, 

. crimson, silver-embroidered coat, and voluminous tur¬ 
ban of cloth-of-gold, with Koom Khan, the com¬ 
mander-in-chief, playing the role of sardonic, mis¬ 
chief-making middleman. From group to group he 
shifted, with soft words and soft gestures, and he 
left behind him a spluttering, minatory trail of dis¬ 
content. 

The princess was pale, frightened, nervous. A sob 
rose to her lips, and the governor of the eastern 
marches pointed a rude, derisive thumb. 

“A well is not to be filled with dewdrops,’’ he said 
in a stage whisper, ‘ffior is a turbulent land to be ruled 
by a woman’s tears.” 

‘‘As soon drag for the moon reflected in the water,” 


74 lTHE mating OF THE BLADES 

chimed in his twin brother, governor of the western 
marches, stroking his scarlet beard. 

‘'As soon lift a hand to catch Time,’^ Koom Khan 
suggested, unsmilingly. 

And then laughter, while the princess turned ap¬ 
pealingly to Ayesha Zemzem, the shriveled old nurse, 
whom she had raised to the rank of Zil-i-Sultana, 
“Shadow of the Queen.” 

“Ayesha,” she said, rising, “I am sick of all this 
leaky-tongued clacking and twaddling and babbling. 
Thou art regent. Do thou tell them that, in this as 
in all other matters, I have decided to follow in the 
foot-steps of my dead father until Hajji Akhbar Khan, 
Itizad el-Dowleh, returns from the far places.” 

“Thou art wrong, piece of my soul,” the hill woman 
rejoined bluntly. 

“Wrong? Thou sayest that . . . even thou?” 

Resolutely, Ayesha inclined her head. 

“I love thee, little soul,” she said. “I would make 
my heart a floor cloth for thy white feet. But—I 
have thought over the matter since last we had speech 
with that dog of a Babu, and to-day I tell thee that 
thou art wrong.” 

“Ayesha!” exclaimed the princess, the hot tears 
(Welling again in her eyes. 

“Wrong and unwise!” stolidly repeated the other, 
amidst an excited' chorus of assent. “Tamerlanistan 
is poor—and money is money.” 

“Right!” agreed Gulabian, surprised as well as 
pleased that here was a new, and powerful, adherent 
of the cause of foreign “concessions.” “Money is 
indeed money!” 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 75 

“Money is on the lips of the liar,” cried Aziza 
Nurmahal, while the Sheik-ul-Islam murmured 
piously, clicking the wooden beads of his rosary, that 
money is an infidel sect and the pavement on the 
bitter, jagged road to damnation. 

“Money is a most evil stench in the nostrils of man¬ 
kind,” he added, with a Moslem's unblushing hypoc¬ 
risy, “but it is sweet ambergris when handled by a 
wise and good priest, familiar with the lessons of the 
Koran.” He coughed, rather self-consciously, as he 
caught Koom Khan's stony eye. 

The princess leaned forward. Her left hand 
clutched the scepter of the Gengizkhani, while her 
right was about the hilt of the straight, simple sword 
that had rested across the knees of the dead Ameer 
during the funeral procession, and the soul of the 
naked steel seemed to reach out and touch her own 
soul, to sluice it with an ancient and crunching energy. 

‘Tlight or wrong,” she said, “I have decided. I do 
not want to grant ^concessions.' I do not want the 
money of the foreigners without the advice of the 
Itizad el-Dowleh. It is wicked money—money that 
fills our ears with the raucous clamor of strife . . .” 

“Speaking about ears,” sententiously from the Ar¬ 
menian, “it has been said that a hungry belly has no 
ears.” 

“Right,” said the governor of the eastern marches; 
“without money, I am a rogue; with money, I am 
God.” 

“Thou art always a rogue'—with money, or with¬ 
out,” gently opined his twin brother. 


76 [THE MATING OF THE BLADES 

‘‘And thou hast pig’s ears,” came the civil rejoinder, 
while Koom Khan, to keep the assembly from de¬ 
generating into an unseemly brawl and perhaps the 
swishing of swords, rose, gathered eyes like a hostess, 
and walked straight up to the peacock throne. 

“Aziza Nurmahal,” he said, with drawling, slow ar¬ 
rogance, “statecraft waits on facts, a mere hand¬ 
maiden, and does not invent them; and the fact is that 
we, the princes and nobles and soldiers of Tamer- 
lanistan, have decided in full durbar that our land 
needs the money and wisdom and energy of the sahebs. 
The Babu Bansi has made a fair offer . . 

“Indeed !” cried the Armenian to whom, that very 
morning, Bansi, who had returned from Teheran, had 
given a certified check on the Anglo-Persian Bank 
for a goodly number af rupees, signed “Preserved 
Higgins”; while Tagi Khan, the leader of the other 
faction, boomed out that the Babu Chandra’s offer was 
every bit as fair. 

Koom Khan shrugged his massive shoulders. 

“It makes no difference to me,” he went on, “to 
which of the two Babus thou grantest the conces¬ 
sion . . .” 

“Right I” chimed in the nurse who, though opposed 
to the princess’ steadfast refusal of opening the land 
to European exploitation, had nowise lost her dislike 
for the courtiers nor learned to bridle her tongue. 
“Right, by Allah! Either Babu will well grease thy 
thieving hand.” 

“Peace, O noseless one!” from Koom Khan; then, 
to the princess: “It seems that thy path is clear. For 
we have decided.” 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 77^ 
echoed Aziza l^urmahal. 

She flared up. Her nostrils quivered. A light like 
a slow-eddying flame came into her black eyes. 

A woman she was, young, tender, unable to cope 
'With the tortuous, shifting undercurrents of palace and 
bazaar and mosque; not yet weaned from the silken, 
scented harem peace; alone. But in her veins raced 
the stormy, conquering blood of the Gengizkhani, the 
descendants of that Genghiz Khan who, the son of a 
rough Central Asian shepherd, clouted an empire to¬ 
gether with brain and brawn; and, abruptly, her flaming 
pride of race burnt away the soft dross of her youth. 

‘T am the ruler of this land,” she said, in a voice 
as dry and keen as a new-ground sword. “My word 
is law. My gesture is a code. My whim is a decree. 
No decision shall be made about the matter of the con¬ 
cessions until the return of the Itizad eUDowleh. 
Such is my command.” 

“Thy—command?” Koom Khan guffawed. “And 
how then wilt thou enforce thy—command?” 

^'ThusT cried Aziza Nurmahal. 

And, with utter, dramatic suddenness, she jerked 
out the ancient, straight sword, and brought it down 
on the wrist of the commander-in-chief. 

“Allah! Allah!” Koom Khan screamed in pain. 

Blood squirted like a thick, crimson whip. He fell, 
fainting, to the ground. 

Came silence; silence that bloated like a balloon of 
evil anticipations, while the crowd rose, like one man, 
shifted forward, intense, venomous, holding its breath 
like a beast of prey about to pounce and tear . . . 


78 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 

and while something like a tremendous lassitude swept 
over Aziza. 

She stared at them. 

Knowing the Orient by right of birth and race, she 
realized that her psychological moment had arrived. 

Now or never! Mastery or death! There lay her 
choice, her chance. 

So she jerked her wandering, trembling mind back 
into the control of her senses. She held herself erect 
and motionless except for her right arm which 
grasped the dripping blade. 

am the ruler of this land,” she said again; and 
there was in her soft, low voice an enormous, metallic 
resonance, the ring of utter conviction. 

“Thus shall I enforce my commands—thus—and 
thus—and thus!” 

And, tightly pressing her lips together, her heart 
writhing in revolt at her own unwomanly brutality, 
she stepped down from the peacock throne and dealt 
blow after blow with her sword, right, left, indis¬ 
criminately, pricking, slashing, cutting, wounding . . . 

And the reaction on the mob was instantaneous, and 
typical. 

For these men were Asians; men inherently callous; 
men devoid of that weakening outgrowth of the 
imagination which the Occident calls sympathy; men 
in whom ruthlessness and cruelty excite a certain kind 
of admiration as a conspicuous and unmistakable ex¬ 
hibition of energy. 

“By the red pig’s bristles!” cried the governor of 
the eastern marches, as he tied a handkerchief about 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 79 

his bleeding left arm. “A true daughter of the dead 
Ameer 

“Brood of the spotted tiger's brood!" 

“A real Gengizkhani, by Allah and by Allah!" 

“Her father was the sickle, and she is the hoe!" 

“Admirable I" 

The last from the Sheik-ul-Islam who was rubbing an 
ear that the sword had nicked, and Gulabian, who had 
hid behind Tagi Khan's broad back, stepped forward 
and kowtowed low; the others followed suit, and again 
Aziza Nurmahal seized the psychological moment. 

“We understand each other—now!" she said, and 
a smile ran from lip to lip, a smile of admiration, this 
time, of affection even. “There will be no granting of 
concessions until the return of Hajji Akhbar Khan, 
Itizad el-Dowleh. Nor will there be discussing, nor 
criticizing, nor wondering, nor speculating. Is that 
understood ?" 

“Listen is obey, O sultana!" came the groveling 
chorus. 

“Good!" 

She turned to the nurse. 

“Since thou dost not agree with me in the mattei* 
of the concessions, and since thou art too old to be 
beaten and since I love thee too dearly to give thee the 
point of the sword when it is red, I shall send thee 
back to the harem, where thou belongest. Thou art 
no longer regent—no longer the Shadow of the Queen. 
But thou shalt live out thy life in the shadow of the 
queen's affection." 

By this time, Gulabian, the Armenian, had regained 
the insolent, wheedling resiliency of his race. 


8 o THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


‘Tf thou shouldst need another regent in place of 
Ayesha Zemzem,” he suggested, ''then I . . 

"I have already thought of that,” replied the 
princess. "Step forth, Wahab al-Shaitan!” 

And a shiver of apprehension ran through the 
crowd, while from a far corner of the hall where he 
had stood a motionless onlooker, dressed in motley 
black and scarlet, his immense hands crossed on the 
hilt of his beheading ax, the executioner, a gigantic, 
plum-colored negro, stalked forward with a sinister 
majesty of movement. 

"Wahab al-Shaitan,” continued the princess, "thou 
art regent until further orders. Rawan-i-Sultana, 
'Killer for the Queen,’ shall be thy honorable title. 
Thy motto shall be: 'Do not trust the living; do not 
fear the dead.’ And thy ax shall be thy staff and seal 
of office.” 

Then, abruptly: 

"The audience is ended, nobles and gentles.” 

An immediate consequence of Aziza Nurmahal’s 
sudden assertion was that the Babu Chandra, local 
manager of the Anglo-Asian Cable Company, decided 
suddenly that his head would be more safely on his 
shoulders if he delivered the cablegram which, ad¬ 
dressed to the princess, had arrived that morning from 
London and which, at first, he had felt inclined to sup¬ 
press—not because he understood the cryptic wording, 
but for the sake of general principles. 

It was dated from London, bore no signature, and 
said: 


iTHE MATING OF THE BLADES 8i 


“The blade is on its way to Calcutta. Go there, and wait in 
the house of my younger brother.*' 

The princess was alone in a tower room of the 
palace when she opened the message and read it. 

‘The ancient prophecy she murmured. “The 
ancient prophecy of the Gengizkhani!” 

And as she stepped to the window and looked south 
toward India, where, under the sweep of the twilight, 
the bunched mass of the town reddened to russet, then 
chilled to flat, silvery gray, while, in the office o£%the 
Anglo-Asian Cable Company, at the corner of the 
Nahassim Street, Chandra's busy brown fingers were 
clicking a message to a gentleman from New York, 
temporarily at the Savoy, London. 

“Wahab al-Shaitan,” said Aziza Nurmahal to the 
regent-executioner, “as soon as my preparations are 
made, I shall go south, to Calcutta. Rule thou the 
land in my absence, and—if thou shouldst not know 
what to do—consult thy beheading ax. And the rest 
shall be as Allah willeth!" 

“My dear,” said Mr. Ezra W. Warburton to his 
daughter, “I have to go to Calcutta, and thence up into 
Central Asia on business. Would you like to come 
with me?” 

“You just bet, you dear old dad!” 

And she gave him a hug and a large, moist kiss. 


CHAPTER VIII 


Giving the pink and silver dawn of a new life, not to forget 
a baker’s dozen of stormclouds. 

Mr. Ezra W. Warburton accomplished things less 
by keeping abreast of opportunity in the matter of 
enterprise, by a cunning and algebraic reckoning and 
dovetailing of the slightest details and chances as was 
the business secret of his rival, Mr. Preserved Hig¬ 
gins, than by an innate, sudden perceptiveness that 
was almost genius—would have been classified as 
genius had he been an artist instead of a financier. 

Thus, just as soon as he had read Chandra’s 
cablegram^ which quoted the one Aziza Nurmahal 
had received from London in toto and added the dis¬ 
tressing information that the princess had finally had 
her way, that there was going to be no more talk of 
“concessions” until her father’s prime minister, who 
had gone on a mysterious errand, had returned, he 
had decided to proceed toTamerlanistan forthwith. 

He had no idea what he should do after he got 
there. Too, he knew from former experiences that 
Mr. Preserved Higgins, in spite of his extravagant 
and blasphemous verbosity, was not given to bluffing, 
to empty boasting, when it came to business; and there 
was the wire which the Londoner had sent him to his 
New York office and which had been cabled on to the 
Savoy: 


82 


4 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 83 

“Got you licked to a frazzle. What price Tamerlanistan 
now ?” 

Mr. Warburton told himself that, in the tug-of-war 
about the Tamerlanistan ‘'concessions,’^ he had lost 
out on two counts: the princess’ decision and his rival’s 
shrewdness, and—he added in his thoughts—perhaps 
the former was only a cloak for the latter; perhaps 
Aziza Nurmahal and the Cockney were working hand- 
in-hand. 

And it was then that his congenital pettiness came 
into the focus. He would fight Mr. Preserved Hig¬ 
gins to the last trench. Doubtless, his own chance to 
make enormous investments in Tamerlanistan and to 
reap correspondingly large profits was gone. But at 
least he might be able to make success, if not impos¬ 
sible, then harder for the other, and there, in Mr. 
Warburton’s philosophy of life and business—inter¬ 
changeable terms—was a point gained. Too, it was 
in this that he differed fundamentally from the real 
builder, the real pioneer, who works and constructs 
and massively clouts together for the glory, the zest, 
the bully splendor of the thing, and not for his per¬ 
sonal, despicable glory and profit. 

He was like a small boy who has eaten his fill, and 
who, rather than push his plate across the table to his 
younger brother, decides to finish his ice cream to the 
last, painful spoonful. 

Yes. At least he would be on the spot ready to 
watch his chance for mischief; and so he had made 
sure at once, over the telephone, that Mr. Preserved 


84 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


Higgins had not booked on the P. & O. liner Kashmere 
which left for Calcutta the following morning, and 
that there would be no other sailing for the next ten 
days. 

His decision to ask his daughter to come with him 
had also been made on the spur of the moment. 

His wife had died when Jane was a young child, 
and father and daughter had always been very close. 
He was very proud of her. He admired her clean, 
audacious self-reliance, but, too, parentlike, was a little 
afraid of it. 

Thus when Hector, following Mr. Preserved Hig¬ 
gins’ exposure, had left the room, and when Jane had 
turned to him with a flat ‘T don’t believe it. The 
man is innocent!” his heart had given a bound, for 
he knew from former experiences her sweeping, un¬ 
compromising fashion of taking the part of the under¬ 
dog. Heretofore, the occasion had usually been with 
some underfed slum child or some underpaid servant, 
and had been easily and satisfactorily settled with the 
help of check book and fountain pen. But this time 
it was a man, a good-looking and youthful male with 
romantic eyes, who had flashed a romantic Oriental 
blade. 

‘‘Damn 1 ” Mr. Warburton had said to himself. 

Then, in a loud voice, and with an entirely false^ 
note of cheerful off-handedness: 

‘"Ridiculous, my dear. The young fellow owned up 
to it himself.” 

“And yet I know he’s innocent, dad!” 

''How do you know, Jane?” 

“Because!” 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 85 

‘'A woman’s reason, my dear.” 

‘‘And the very, very bestest reason in the world. I 
just —know it!” 

“But . . an ejaculation, typically, malely 
irascible. 

“But—nothing, dad! Nobody with eyes like his 
can possibly be guilty of such a mean thing as cheating 
at cards. And then—remember how he used his 
blade, dad!” she had added with serene, unblushing 
inconsequence. 

He had begun to think of speeches, very firm, ex¬ 
plicit, and didactic speeches, he would make, pointing 
out to her that London, all Europe in fact, was full of 
fortune hunters, that he was an immensely wealthy 
man and she a famous heiress, that perhaps Hector 
Wade had staged the fight near St. Katherine so as to 
meet her ir a picturesque setting. 

But, knowing her stubbornness, her sense of abso¬ 
lute independence, he had thought that it would be 
better to let well enough alone, and had satisfied him¬ 
self with a grumbled “I had an idea that, with all your 
social experiences, here and in New York and in Paris, 
you’d have more sense than to fall for that sort of 
...” he had come near saying “bunk,” but had re¬ 
covered in time and had said “thing!” 

The choice of words had been unfortunate. 

Jane had made a rash reply, and by the end of the 
scene—for it had degenerated into a scene—for the 
first time in their lives they had felt conscious of a 
certain antagonism toward each other. It had been 
as sudden as it had been unexpected. 

And it had hurt—^both. 


86 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


Then had come Babu Chandra’s telegram; and— 
"‘distance and a change of milieu is the best palliative 
in the world,” had been his paternally cynical thought. 
In the golden romance of far Asia she would forget 
the romance her girlish heart had woven about “that 
card-cheating adventurer,” as he called him. 

Therefore his invitation to come along with him. 

Therefore, too, her warm, moist kiss. 

Therefore, finally, Jane smiling impishly at a large 
bouquet of silvery Guelder roses that had come, that 
very morning, accompanied by a note which was 
typically English, both in its shy, clumsy self-con¬ 
sciousness and its unexpected, direct outspokenness, 
saying amongst other things: 

“. . . and so I hope you’ll accept these roses. I know I 
have not the right to be fond of you, but I can’t very well 
help it, can I? No harm done, anyway. For, you see, I am 
off to India to-morrow morning, and the odds are rather long 
that I shall never see you again.’' 

/ 

The signature was: 

“Yours very truly, (Sic!) 

“Hector Wade.” 

Thus, Mr. Ezra W. Warburton was doubly shocked, 
when, having nursed his mal de mer in his cabin dur¬ 
ing the first few days of the journey, as was his habit, 
just as the Kashmere was sticking her dainty nose 
into the green swirl of the Bay of Biscay, and after 
he had decided that the world was not so bad when 
all was said and done and that he would be able to 
do with a cup of beef broth, a dry biscuit, and a glass 


I 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 87 

of port, passing by a large Anglo-Indian lady with 
spats, an abortive mustache, big feet, and a tailor- 
made manner, he heard her say to her companion: 

‘‘Such a jolly little girl that—what's her name?— 
oh, yes!—^Warburton. And, would you believe it, my 
dear, she pals up with that bounder of a Wade 1 " 

“You mean that Dragoon chap who . . 

“Yes, my dear.” 

“Good Heavens ! You know, they shouldn't allow* 
chaps like Wade to go to India. Wretched for the 
morale of the natives. But, with the Liberals in 
power, what can you . . .” 

The financier did not wait to hear the end of the 
sentence. He forgot all about broth and biscuit and 
port. 

“Have you by any chance seen my daughter?” he 
asked the steward in a positively dramatic manner. 

“Yes, sir. I saw her on top deck two minutes back. 
Thank you, sir.” 

And it was in the snug shadow of a life-boat that 
the irate father came upon his daughter, side by side 
with Hector Wade. 

“Good—morning!” he said, with a strong accent 
on the “good” and a smile curling his thin lips. 

But his daughter knew of old that this altogether, 
too consummate endeavor after genial ease was nothing 
except a cloak for a smoldering rage that might break 
at any moment. 

It was she herself, therefore, who fired the first shot. 

“Dad,” she said, “it's no use your saying anything 
to Hector!” 


88 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


‘‘Hector?^’ 

‘‘Yes, dad’'—a tiny finger indicating her companion 
who was trying to speak but was prevented from doing 
so by the firm grinding of Jane’s right heel into his 
left instep—-‘T mean Mr. Wade. You know him, 
don’t you? I know what you’re thinking, dad, and 
I tell you it’s no use blaming him. I made him talk 
to me. I made him sit by me. Didn’t I, Hector?” 

“Daughter!” said Mr. Warburton, in a decidedly 
episcopal manner, “come with me at once.” 

“I’m too old to be spanked, dad,” smiled Jane, “but 
I’ll come with you, and . . .” 

“As to you, sir,’^ her father had turned to Hector, 
“you—^you are a rascal! An adventurer I You—you 
... to follow my daughter—^to take the same ship— 
to . . .” 

“When did you book your passage, Mr. Warbur¬ 
ton?” came the younger man’s cool question. 

“Saturday afternoon! Why?” 

“Because I booked mine Saturday morning. If yon 
do not believe me, ask the purser. Good day, sir!” 

And he bowed to Jane and turned on his heel, while 
the girl looked at her father rather triumphantly. 

The next moment she had slipped her hand through 
his arm and was walking by his side. 

“Dad,” she said, “don’t be angry. I just wanted to 
find out something from Hector, and I did. And I 
am so glad you are better. Oh—come on! Stop bit¬ 
ing your lips!” 

Late that night—for, after all, there was real affec¬ 
tion between them—^Jane confided in her father. 



,JHE MATING OF THE BLADES 89 

‘‘Dad/’ she said, “I do believe he is innocent. He 
wouldn’t say so—though goodness knows I tried to 
make him ’fess up!” 

For the first time her father smiled. 

“I know what a persistent little baggage you are, 
and I feel it in my heart to be sorry for young Wade 
if you nagged him.” 

“I didn’t. I just asked him.” 

“All right. I understand. I am quite familiar with 
your way of—asking. Well—what was the result?” 

“I—oh—I don’t know. ‘Are you really guilty?’ I 
asked him, and he said: ‘Yes.’ And then I repeated 
my question once—perhaps twice . . 

“Call it seventeen times,” dryly from her father. 

“And, finally, in a sort of desperation . . .” 

“Which I personally can well appreciate—” 

“He said: ‘If you do not believe me, ask my father 
and my older brother.’ Now, isn’t that queer?” 

“What’s queer about it?” 

“Why—if I asked his own father, his own brother, 
they would naturally defend him; wouldn’t they? 
They’d swear up and down that he’s innocent—of 
course! So why does he want me to ask them?” 

“Something to that,” grumbled Mr. Warburton; 
and, suddenly, she put her arms about his neck. 

“You and I are pals, aren’t we, dad?” 

“You bet, little daughter.” 

“You wouldn’t want me to hide anything from you, 
would you?” 

“Sure not.” 

“Well—I am fond of Hector! Very, very fond!” 

He flared up. 


90 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 

“Do you mean to say/' he demanded, in a voice 
choked with rage, “that that young scoundrel has 
dared ...” 

“He?” She shook her head. “Gracious no! He 
isn’t that sort! It was up to me to make the ad¬ 
vances . . .” 

“Jane!” 

“It’s all right, dad. He wouldn’t let me. But I 
am fond of him, and I do believe he is innocent, and 
. . . oh, dear . . .” 

And then her father took her on his knees as he used 
to do when she was a small girl and had broken her 
pet doll, and talked to her at length and very gently. 
For, while he believed devoutly in a holy trinity com¬ 
posed of money, respectability, and pedigree, he also 
believed in fairness: fairness hedged in by certain 
safety-first, protective, social conventions. 

“If Mr. Wade is innocent,” he wound up, “let him 
prove it. And then—well—we’ll talk about it again. 
But promise me that you will keep away from him 
as long as he is under a cloud—right or wrong—inno¬ 
cent or guilty. Our social prejudices may be wretched 
and mean and narrow, but—there they are! We 
simply have to live up to them this side of Utopia.” 

“That’s exactly what Hector says,” she replied 
through her tears. “He told me that he has no right 
to speak to me—that . . .” 

And then her father mumbled something about 
Hector Wade, after all, not being such a bad fellow, 
and thought to himself that he would strengthen the* 
younger man’s resolution to keep away from Jane by 
a few, kindly, but decisive words. 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


91 


But there was no need for it. Somehow, the ship 
seemed to have swallowed Hector. He took his meals 
in his cabin and only went for a breath of fresh air 
late at night, nor was it altogether because of the girl 
that he kept to himself so rigorously. For, knowing 
his own class and the emphatic, pitiless judgments of 
his own class when it came to things that ‘'simply 
aren’t done,” he could well imagine what was being 
said about him in the smoking saloon by the home- 
English and Anglo-Indians and Anglo-Chinese, all be¬ 
longing to that social stratum, as hide-bound as the 
most superstitious Brahmin caste, that puts the niceties 
of manners and customs far above the niceties of their 
Christian religion, which preaches forgiveness and 
plain, straight humanity, and prefers a crimson-handed 
murderer to a cad. 

He had cheated at cards, society said; he had broken 
an unwritten law; and down there, in the first-class 
smoking saloon, it was held that a man could put his 
foot on the decalogue as long as he “played the game.” 

And a jolly good rule too; thought Hector, without 
the slightest trace of bitterness against his country¬ 
men; for, after all, this unwritten rule had made 
Britain what she was, fully as much as Magna Charta. 

He did not even fell unhappy or depressed when, 
in his lonely wanderings late at night about the de¬ 
serted top deck, he heard Jane Warburton’s low laugh 
drift up from the music room. 

Hopeless, his love for her? Of course. 

Utterly hopeless, and he knew it. 

But he stared at the revelation of his love like a 
new Adam, ajid he was certain that the original Gar- 



92 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 

den of Eden lay behind her deep, gold-reflecting eyes* 

Light, frothy love had come to him in the past. 
Had come and gone. 

But now, for the first time, love that was not light 
had come into his life, and the burden of it was both 
heavy and sweet. 

And all the time, while he was calling himself a 
silly fool who was trying to rope the far stars with a 
clumsy, leathern noose of his own clouting; while he 
cursed himself for a sentimental jackass who ought 
to be kicked; a wild thing in him, a thing that his past 
life seemed to have beggared and starved and denied, 
woke in its full, fresh strength. 

Calling to him like some flying spirit in a storm, it 
claimed him. It seemed to summon him back to some¬ 
thing he had forgotten long ago—centuries ago. It 
drew him as empty space draws a giddy man, to the 
very edge of the precipice. Steadily it gained in 
strength and massiveness until it had enveloped him 
completely in a silent, receptive* atmosphere which he 
could not shake off, waking or sleeping; and, at the 
very core of it, at the flaming center of his love, 
strong yet soft, steely yet pliable, brutal yet loyal, 
was the sword—the ancient blade which had come out 
of Asia! 

It gave meaning to his life and, somehow, a faint, 
silvery promise to his love— 

His thoughts roamed back frequently to the little 
shop in Coal Yard Street, off Drury Lane, and to 
the strange, elderly Asiatic who, more even than his 
own impulse, had been responsible for his sudden, aim- 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 93 

less, fantastic departure for Calcutta—and what lay 
beyond. 

Resolutely, deliberately, being a sober-minded young 
Englishman, he tried to forget, to deny even to him¬ 
self, the mysterious veil which cloaked the whole in¬ 
cident, from the advertisement in the newspaper to 
Ali Yusuf Khan’s parting advice that the blade would 
speak to him when man failed him, or Fate. He pre¬ 
ferred to picture Ali as a kindly old man who had 
taken pity on his unhappiness and had helped him out 
of the generosity of his heart without any ulterior 
motive; and so, twenty-four hours before the Kash^ 
mere reached Calcutta, he asked the cabin steward to 
bring pen and ink and paper, and wrote a letter to his 
impromptu benefactor, winding up with: 

“. . . and so, while I don’t know what the future may have 
in store for me, I shall always be very grateful to you, to you 
and—well, yes—to Asia. You^must let me know if I can ever 
be of help to you . . ** 

And, just then, Ali Yusuf Khan needed help. 

For a day after Police Sergeant Horatio Pinker had 
told the story *of the old Oriental’s string of diamonds 
to reporter Jimmy Hawden ^ho, in turn, had men¬ 
tioned it to a sandy-haired gentleman, the latter had 
faced Mr. Preserved Higgins in the dingy, cobwebby 
office on Upper Thames Street, not far from Poult- 
ney’s Inn. 

He had told his tale, and the Cockney millionaire 
had mused and shaken his head. 

‘T ’ave ’arf an idea who the blighter is,” he had said, 
finally, ''but I don’t know wot ’e’s doin’ ’ere. Well— 


94 the mating of THE BLADES 


alwys be on the syfe side, as the fat boy sed as ’e 
swalloed ’is tenth mutton pie. Yes—I think ’e’ll be 
syfer in jug, syfer for me, that is 1” 

And he had gone to the police, had given a descrip¬ 
tion of a necklace of diamonds of which he had been 
robbed, had sworn to a search warrant by the strength 
of which a very similar string of diamonds—^'as like 
to mine as- peas in a pod,” he had said—^had been 
found in Ali Yusuf Khan’s small safe. And, by this 
entirely crude, but entirely efficient method, the latter 
was told twenty-four hours later by Police Captain 
Hodges that everything he might say would be used 
against him, while Sergeant Horatio Pinker banked 
a neat check which Mr. Preserved Higgins had given 
him and dreamt of promotion. 

All Yusuf Khan had taken his imprisonment with 
a great deal of blandly philosophic calm and had driven 
Mr. Robertson, the young lawyer whom the court had 
assigned to him, nearly to distraction by absolutely 
refusing to say where and how he had got the neck¬ 
lace, and by simply smiling into his partriarchal beard 
when confronted with the fair enough statement that 
a man in his position had no business having such 
valuable jewels in his possession. 

‘"Yes,” he had said, in his soft, halting English, ‘"the 
diamonds—they are mine—^yes, saheb. Yes. I can 
prove it.” 

“Then why don’t you? Why do you let it come 
to trial?” 

“Because . . .” Ali Yusuf Khan had interrupted 
himself. “Tell me, saheb. Mr. Higgins—he must 
come—I mean be present at my trial ?” 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 95 

‘‘Yes. At least I can arrange it so.’* 

“Good. And perhaps you can arrange too that the 
trial—it will not be for many, many weeks?”. 

“Well—I may be able to hold it over until the Sep¬ 
tember assizes. But why, man? Heavens above, do 
you prefer to stay in jail?” 

“Yes, saheb, if that should keep Mr. Higgins in 
town.” 

“But—why, man? What’s going on in the back 
of your twisting Oriental brain?” 

And Ali Yusuf Khan had smiled guilelessly and 
had refused to answer any further questions. 

Meanwhile, the Kashmere came in sight of Cal¬ 
cutta, and all the world was on deck, exchanging 
cards and promises to write, which would not be kept, 
and beginning to reestablish the strict social lines of 
Anglo-India which divide a deputy assistant commis¬ 
sioner’s wife from the wife of a penniless subaltern 
of native infantry, lines which had been partly for¬ 
gotten in the humanizing influence of an ocean steam¬ 
ship. 

Utterly alone in the throng, with the very stewards 
knowing and whispering of his disgrace. Hector Wade 
leaned over the top deck gunwale, looking out to 
where the sun was rising in the distant east behind 
lowering cloud banks that were like mountains of 
gold, glowing lava. There was a gauze-like fog which 
lifted suddenly, and, minute by minute. Job Charnock’s 
old town came more sharply into the focus. Nearer 
and nearer it came until he could see the details. 

The roofs of the city were bathed in a purple light. 


96 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 

The windows flashed with a thousand dazzling reflec¬ 
tions. The whole was Calcutta on a perfect day in 
late summer; a city of brass and.copper and gold, hard, 
shimmering, like the legendary town the Titans once 
forged out of the molten fragments of a forgotten 
world. 

So the Kashmere steamed up that chained, or rather 
unchained, monster named the Hoogli, which every 
once in a while rises kittenishly, gnawing at the water 
front with sharp teeth, and strewing the surrounding 
landscape with the torn, battered carcasses of great 
ships. 

Asia! thought Hector. The land which had given 
him birth! The land which he had forgotten in the 
soft, yellow Sussex wold! And he seemed to recog¬ 
nize it after the manner of scenes seen in vivid dreams. 
Like a treasure house it was to him, which he could 
not enter without the right password, and somehow 
he knew that he would remember the password—that 
the ancient blade, which throbbed against his heart, 
would whisper it to him. 

He was curiously excited as he stood there, amidst 
the chattering, gossiping, laughing crowd of Anglo- 
Indians, picking out familiar landmarks. Yet his ex¬ 
citement was neither vicious nor violent, but like a 
delicate network of feelers connecting him with the 
great, motley Asia which lay there at his feet—‘‘wait¬ 
ing for me, expecting me,’' the words came to him 
unconsciously. 

And he stood there and stared and thought, while 
the Kashmere, obeying the touch of the master pilot, 
zigzagged her way through the shifting sand banks 


fTHE MATING OF THE BLADES 97 

of the great, man-eating river, and while beyond the 
arrogant town the highlands came into view, closing 
in like a tide of stone—as if Asia were there, behind 
those naked, sun-scorched ridges that glowed like 
topaz and sapphire—Asia, passive, patient, amorphous, 
yet minatory—^threatening, even in its sleep, the hand¬ 
ful of Europeans who were clinging to its outer 
fringe . . . 

As Hector looked, something hidden seemed to 
grow within him to a height of abnormal perceptive¬ 
ness. The sense of a past life, a life which he was 
dimly remembering again, became magnified with 
every minute that passed. He felt that presently the 
power of perceiving would pass into that of doing. 
He would strike a blow for his fate ... a blow . . . 
his hand touched the sword that pressed against his 
heart . . . 

Then, very suddenly, a dry cackle jerked him back 
into the realities of his life. 

^'Yes,” somebody was saying, '‘they kicked him out 
of the Dragoons. Cheated at cards, the damned cad. 
What’s he going to do in India? Heaven knows. 
The usual thing, I s’pose—go under—mate up with 
some low-caste bazaar woman—live native style— 
come ’round the Club, cadgin’ for drinks . . . you 
know. Jack I Calcutta’s full of his sort . . .” 


CHAPTER IX 


Which mentions some trivialities about Gwendolyn de Vere, I 
nee Bridget O’Callahan, then swings straight back to a section | 
of Calcutta as famous for its evil odors as its evil morals. 

Even Tollemache Wade, though he regarded any | 
show in which Miss Gwendolyn de Vere, nee Bridget ] 
O’Callahan, had a part through the roseate spectacles j 
of his personal affection for her, could not deny that I 
“A Pair of Gray Eyes” was not a new musical play, i 

For, in a way, it was a historic play, a gently remi- ' 
niscent play that had been cut out, pasted, remodeled, ! 
and recast; had been restored to its original form, 
renamed, and once again rewritten; finally had been 
rehashed with the help of a collaborator who was an 
impecunious cousin of the producing manager, and 
who took seventy-five per cent of the royalties and 
put it through all the regular paces of condensement 
and enlargement which make playwriting such a de¬ 
lightful pastime for a nervous writer blessed with an 
artistic temperament, a conscience, and a lack of 
humor. 

The music contained stray bits from Gilbert and 
Sullivan’s operas and a goo 4 many Wagnerian motifs 
made over and syncopated, while the dialogue was 
richly spiced with lines from ‘'Charlie’s Aunt.” There 
was, of course, an opening chorus showing a London 
society matron whose daughters—seventeen of them, 
98 



THE MATING OF THE BLADES 99 


including Gwendolyn de Vere—hopped about in bath¬ 
ing suits; interpolated specialties giving imitations of 
famous imitators; a whole-hearted Irish self-made 
man, who had founded the Bermuda Onion Trust and 
whose daughter was being wooed by a Russian Grand- 
duke who spoke with a Franco-Hebrew accent; and 
wheezes, the repetition of which would be considered 
suicidal on any sunny Broadway corner between 
Thirty-Fourth and Forty-Seventh Streets. 

Even the tuning of the bass-viol was stolen. 

But the play was a success. 

'‘Yes, old dear,” said Gwendolyn de Vere to The 
Honorable Tollemache Wade, reclining on a couch in 
her'bedroom of the Adelphi Apartments, which was 
typical of her mind and taste—a hectic rubbish and 
flummery of make-believe art. “TheyTe turning them 
away night after night.” 

"Corkin’, what?” 

"Corkin’—rather! But not for me I I haven’t 
even a speakin’ bit. And the show has positively made 
Nell Grosvenor. You know yourself she can’t dance, 
and she can’t sing, and—^her figure—my word! But 
there you are, Tollie old chap. She is— made! Why 
—up at Robinson & Smyth’s they named a new bras¬ 
siere after her!” 

"Yes?” , 

Tollemache Wade looked up, a little worried. He 
was the sort who, never looking ahead of the passing 
hour when it was a question of staying his own crav¬ 
ings, had not the heart to look beyond the passing 
hour’s pity where those whom he loved were concerned 


loo [THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


^—the sort who pauperized others as well as himself. 
And he had an idea of what was coming. 

‘^Nell Grosvenor is going to marry that stockbrokin^ 
johnny next week/’ went on Gwendolyn; ‘Svhat’s his 
name?—oh, yes—Madison, and she’s goin’ to quit the 
stage straight off.” 

"‘Who’s going to substitute for her?” asked Tolle- 
mache; and then the answer which he expected—and 
feared: 

“I am—if you’ll come through with a bit of the 
ready. You know how it is in the profession. A 
girl hasn’t got a chance unless she slips something to 
the manager—and .•. 

“But, my dear!” expostulated Tollemache. “I 
haven’t a red, you know, and I’m head-over-heels in 
debts, and . . 

“If you can’t, Reggie Bullivant will!” came Gwen¬ 
dolyn’s terse, brutal rejoinder. 

The result was that Tollemache Wade paid another 
and humiliating call on Sam Lewis, the usurer of 
Lombard Street, and, by signing a note for fifteen 
thousand guineas, received five thousand in cash and 
the remaining ten thousand in champagne and un¬ 
salable rugs; that Gwendolyn de Vere appeared the 
next week in Nell Grosvenor’s role, coming on in the 
first act as an English milkmaid, a posy of property 
daisies in her hand, dressed in a simple little milking- 
costume of rose madder charmeuse and a diamond 
tiara; and that, early in September, Mr. Sam Lewis 
went to Sussex and interviewed the Earl of Dealle. 

He came prepared for the usual scene: hard words, 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES loi 


a curt refusal to settle his son^s debts, then, after cer¬ 
tain threats on the part of Mr. Lewis, a check book 
drawn out and the pen scratching tremblingly across 
the pink slip, perhaps with an accompanying say. 
Don't deposit this check for a couple of weeks. I 
have to have time to turn round and make certain 
arrangements”—a euphemism for mortgaging or sell¬ 
ing another piece of property. 

But, for once, Mr. Lewis had made a mistake. 

He stated what he wanted, and the earl, hiding the 
wound in his heart, looked up very much with the ex¬ 
pression of the Punch and Judy clown just before he 
frizzles the policeman with a red-hot poker. 

*'Sam,” he said, for he had had dealings of his own 
with the money lender when both had been forty years 
younger, ‘‘you backed the wrong mare this time. 
Long odds—what, what?—but no starter at all! In 
other words, you lose, my lad.” 

“Lose—what ?” 

“Fifteen thousand guineas, Samuel. That's the 
amount, isn't it ?” 

“Yes, yes—also some other notes long overdue—> 
altogether nearly twenty-five thousand . . .” 

“A whole lot of tin,” came the sardonic rejoinder, 
“but you should thank the God of Abraham and 
Jacob that you can afford to lose it.” 

“But—m’lord!” Mr. Lewis shivered. He wiped 
beads of perspiration from his bulbous forehead with a 
large bandana handkerchief. “You mean to say 
that ...” 

“I mean to say that I have resigned being chancellor 
of the exchequer for Jollemache.” 


102 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 

‘‘But . . 

“Sorry, my lad. The simple truth is that I have 
not got it—that you can’t wring money from a stone 
—who is stony broke . . He smiled grimly at his 
own pun. 

Mr. Lewis changed from the wheedling to the 
minatory. 

“M’lord,” he said, “if you don’t pay . . 

“Right-oh! I know exactly what you are going to 
do. Have to have your little old pound of flesh, what ? 
And since you can’t get it in coin of the realm, you’ll 
take it out in ruin and disgrace—by dragging my son 
through the court of bankruptcy and through the filth 
of the ha’penny press. Very well. Hector ruined be¬ 
cause of Tollemache”—^he mumbled to himself; his 
sardonic bravado was gone; he was just an old man, 
feeble, pitiful, senile—“and now Tollemache! Divine 
Providence and all that sort of asinine drivel . . 

He collapsed into a chair and cried, as old men cry, 
with cracked, ludicrous, high-pitched little sobs, while 
Tomps, the butler, showed Mr. Sam Lewis to the door. 

And one of the results of the interview was that Mr. 
Preserved Higgins, who was pacing up and down the 
length of the little cobwebby office of Upper Thames 
Street, happening to glance at the headline of the 
afternoon newspaper which the sandy-haired gentle¬ 
man had brought in, stopped suddenly short and 
uttered the word “Cricky!” 

After which he laughed uproariously. 

A minute earlier he had poured forth a volley of 
oaths, some peculiar to his native heath of Hog Lane, 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES lo^i 

others purloined from Whitechapel and Pimlico, still 
others learned during his years as able-bodied seaman 
and borrowed from the cosmopolitan throng of the 
South African gold fields, and others again that are 
the proud, linguistic privilege of the British army in 
partibus infidelium. 

The sandy-haired gentleman had smoked a wood¬ 
bine and listened, torn between awe and envy. 

“Diddled me, ’e did, that there—crimson Ali Yusuf 
Khan!’^ the millionaire had exclaimed, kicking him¬ 
self viciously in the shin. “Diddled me, by-, 

the -- Bilked me, by - Kept me ’ere in 

London, on purpose, for ’is ruddy trial wot’s cornin’ 
orf in the September assizes so’s to keep me aw’y 
from Calcutta where ’Ector Wade is rubbin’ noses 
with the Hemperor of Dollars and Cents. Yes! 

They syled on the syme ship, the -, I just 

found out. And ’ere Babu Bansi writes me that 
the princess, too, is on ’er w’y to Calcutta, 
doubtless to meet ’Ector and that there plurry 
Yank.” 

“But,” the sandy-haired gentleman had interrupted, 
“it seems to me the Babu should have . . .” 

“Should ’ave nothink 1 ” Mr. Higgins was fair 
enough. “ ’E did ’is part. Cybled me as soon as the 
old Ameer ’ad kicked the bucket and told me wot 
’e’d found out about . . . you know. ’Ere”—open¬ 
ing the small, plump safe and taking from amongst 
his private files the wire which Bansi had sent him 
the day of the Ameer’s funeral, addressed to 
*^Gloopsr 

He had read aloud: 






104 the mating of THE BLADES 

“Tell Gloops meanwhile should look up Burke’s Peerage 
find bally old nobility family whose escutcheon is double¬ 
headed lion and establish with them jolly old social relations.” 

‘Well?” he had continued. “Didn’t you and me 
chuck ourselves all over the bloomin’ plyce and look 
through the British Museum and Westminster Abbey 
and the Office of ’Eraldry until we’d found the nyme 
of that there family with the double-’eaded lion? 
And, after Bansi ’ad wired me particulars, didn’t I 
establish social relytions? Didn’t I go down to Sus¬ 
sex and visit them—two-’eaded lions and mortgage and 
rotten grub and all ? Didn’t I do everything I bloody 
well could? Could anybody ’ave been more cyreful 
than me? And now—^bilked, diddled—Gawd stroike 
me pink! That’s wot I am! Done brown! Like a 
snut-nosed brat with the whoopin’ cough and two left 
feet!” 

Then he happened to glance at the newspaper head¬ 
line, uttered the mysterious “Cricky!” laughed up¬ 
roariously, and turned to the sandy-haired gentleman 
who was just about to decide that his employer had 
lost his reason. 

“Don’t you see ?” he said. “Ain’t Tollemache a son 
of that there two-’eaded lion family as much as ’Ector? 
And, with good old Sam Lewis puttin’ on the thumb 
screws, ain’t ’e every bit as down and out as ’Ector— 
Gawd bless ’em both? And ’e ain’t as proud as ’Ector 
and I’ll ’ave ’im eat out o’ my ’and in no time. Mebbe 
it’s even better, ’im bein’ the older son. I ain’t a re¬ 
ligious man, ’avin’ been too busy all my life and my 
people ’avin’ been chapel folk, but I call this bloomin’ 
providential!” 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 105 

He looked at his watch. 

^Tive o'clock/' he went on. ‘‘You'll find the 
Honorable Tollemache at the Criterion a-drownin' of 
his sorrers, and if you don't find 'im there, arsk the 
barmaid at the Lorraine, on Leicester Square. She’ll 
know. Anyway, you get 'im and bring 'im 'ere as 
quick's you can!” 

And the sandy-haired gentleman was off on a run, 
taking a short cut through Suffolk Lane and disap¬ 
pearing in the blotchy shadows of the Cannon Street 
Railway Terminus, while Mr. Preserved Higgins tele¬ 
phoned to his devoted adherent, Horatio Pinker of the 
metropolitan police, recently promoted to desk ser¬ 
geant, and asked him to see to it that the case against 
Ali Yusuf Khan be quashed, immediately, and with¬ 
out any undesirable publicity. 

He said that he had found the diamond necklace, 
that he was sorry to have, quite unwittingly, pre¬ 
ferred a false charge against the Oriental, and that 
he would be only too glad to send the latter a good- 
sized check as balm for his hurt dignity and reputa¬ 
tion. 

At the other end of the wire. Sergeant Horatio 
Pinker turned to a colleague. 

“Ain’t Mr. Higgins the gent, though?” he asked. 

Fifteen minutes later, the Cockney millionaire was 
wagging his russet beard at Tollemache Wade, who 
was sitting across from him, distracted, nervous, a 
little the worse for drink. 

“I’ll do it,” wound up Mr. Higgins, “because of 
your father, m’boy. Is it a bargain?” 

“Oh—I s'pose so.” 


io6 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 

‘'Can you be ready by to-morrow morning—let’s s’y 
to-morrow noon?” 

"Rather. There’s nothing to keep me in town, you 
know—” and Tollemache thought, bitterly, that an 
hour earlier Gwendolyn de Vere’s maid had told him 
that her mistress was not at home, and that, from her 
drawing-room, he had heard Gwendolyn’s light laugh 
and Reggie Bullivant’s answering basso. 

"All right, m’boy. Buy everything you want. 
Charge it up to me. We leave to-morrow via Paris, 
Berlin, and Moscow, then to Orenburg, and over the 
Russian military r’ylw’y to Bokhara, Central Asia.” 

"I haven’t a passport,” said Tollemache Wade, "and 
I rather doubt if, with this scandal of mine, bankruptcy 
and drummin’ out of the army for conduct unbecomin’ 
and old Gwen givin’ interviews to the reporters and 
all that, you know, the foreign office will give me 
one.” 

"Don’t you bother your ’ead about passports, old 
cock. I ’ave friends from ’ere to Timbuktu, and I 
’ave their number, every blasted last one’s of ’em, and 
I knows ’ow to grease palms tactful-like. There’s a 
lad at the Russian Embassy who’ll do it dirt cheap. 
And now—off with you; and remember, me bucko, 
not a word to anybody, or the bargain’s orf, see?” 

That evening, using a bizarre code which completely 
baffled the local Tamerlanistan manager-of the Anglo- 
Asian Cable Company, he sent a wire to his Babu 
satellite, and remarked to the sandy-haired gentle¬ 
man: 

"I’d like to see the fyces of the good old Hemperor 
of Dollars and Cents and of ’Ector when they finds 


iTHE MATING OF THE BLADES 107 

out ’ow Fm goin’ to kick ’em in the south side of their 
pants—and they ain’t goin’ to find out for a long time 
yet. By the w’y, look up Babu Bansi’s old corre¬ 
spondence and see wot the blighter’s nyme is—^you 
know, the governor of the western marches of Tamer- 
lanistan. Phone me, and then go straight to Pollocks, 
on Bond Street, and get me a ’ole lot of them jewels 
Oriental potentytes likes—off-color diamonds and 
moonstones and opals and things. Pollocks will know. 
’Ave ’em charge it up to me and damn the expense. 
Then, to-morrow early, go to the Smith & Union 
Bank . . 

And a string of precise instructions, since Mr. Pre¬ 
served Higgins’ method of doing business, once he 
had arrived at a decision, was as simple and direct as 
a question in the Rule-of-Three. 

Half an hour later he was closeted with his friend, 
Baron Vassily Ilyitch de Todleben, of the Russian Em¬ 
bassy, who was one of those men who have to have 
blatantly outward signs of the fact that they are en¬ 
joying themselves: a motor-car, a bottle of champagne, 
a chorus girl, or a chair in a roulette game; and who, 
being congenitally impecunious, and as congenitally 
unscrupulous, was willing not to let his left hand know 
what his right was taking. 

‘‘Yes,” he said to Mr. Preserved Higgins, “I’ll find 
out what I can about that Abderrahman Yahiah Khan 
—governor of the western marches of Tamerlanistan, 
didn’t you say?” 

“Yes, Baron.” 

“All right. I have a friend in Moscow, a high 
official in the Bureau for Pan-Russian Central-Asian 


io8 the mating of f he BLADES 


Propaganda. I shall send him a wire, and he will get 
into communication with you.” 

“Thanks, my lad, and don't you be afraid—it 'as 
nothing to do with politics. I ain't doin' any dirty 
work for England. It's just plain business.” 

“That's all right, Mr. Higgins.” The Russian 
waved a white,' excessively well-kept hand. “And 
now, as to the other little matter . . .” 

And he affixed the Tsar's seal to two passports, one 
for Mr. Higgins himself, the other for a gentleman 
by the name of Henry Wallace Wilberforce who, to 
judge from the written description on the stamped 
paper, bore a marked physical resemblance to The 
Honorable Tollemache Wade. 

The latter’s brother, in the meantime, was worrying 
about the same matter of passports. 

It did not take him over twenty-four hours to dis¬ 
cover that he had been right in his surmise and that 
India, as represented and crystallized by its premier 
city of Calcutta, held out as little chance to him as 
home-England. It was the identical story from Park 
Street to the Howrah Bridge, from Fort William to 
the Towers of Silence, from the Presbyterian Church 
in Old Court House Street to Lai Bazaar: here and 
there he recognized familiar faces, some dead white 
with the heat of the tropics, others still ruddy with 
recent British beef and beer. 

But it was as he had known it would be: 

“Oh, yes. Wade. Hector Wade, old Dealle's son, 
chap who used to be in the Dragoons —you know. 
Rotten cad—^you heard about it—what?” 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 109 

And shoulders shrugging, eyes looking pity or con¬ 
tempt, and the very old maids who had been sent to 
India by their doting parents as a last chance at the 
matrimonial grab-bag, used their lorgnettes in the ap¬ 
proved Mayfair style. 

Yes. Calcutta was only an imperial suburb, a tropi¬ 
cal annex to Belgravia and Marlborough House 1 

Within three days of his arrival the thing had be¬ 
come nearly a pathological obsession with him, and he 
seemed to read the sneering, malicious story of his dis¬ 
grace in every face he saw in the crowded thorough¬ 
fares of Calcutta. He imagined that even the natives 
were looking at him with contempt: the patent- 
leathered Bengalis, oily with ghee; the lean, monkey¬ 
faced Madrassis; the acrid-scented Sansis with baskets 
of unclean food slung across their backs; the ruffianly 
Punjaubis, the soft-stepping, neat Parsees, and the big¬ 
boned, gray-eyed, white-skinned men from the farther 
north, who looked about them with an odd mixture of 
wonder and derision. 

Later on, he used to remark that it was only the 
touch of the blade against his heart—'T know it 
sounds no end silly,” he would add—that kept him, 
if not from becoming stark mad, then at least from 
committing assault and battery with intent to kill on 
some innocent Briton or harmless Bengali. 

But, out of the blade, some flooding, massive energy, 
like a tide of unknown power and beauty and glory, 
seemed to surge through him, driving his misgivings 
away with the strength of tremendous, dynamic 
values and, finally, on the fifth day, quite suddenly, di¬ 
recting his feet to the government office on Park 


no [THE MATING OF JHE BLADES 


Street where passports were made out for Afghan¬ 
istan, Central Asia, and the North. 

For he had made up his mind to leave Calcutta, 
India, to go clear, clear away—out into the far, yel¬ 
low, brooding heart of Asia. 

Perhaps AH Yusuf Khan had been right. 

Perhaps the old, tired, patient soul of Asia needed 
men like himself, young and strong and unhappy . . . 

But when he stated his errand to Sir James Rivet- 
Carnac, the official in charge, that crimson-necked, 
purse-mouthed knight smiled in his most pinchbeck 
manner. 

He toyed with his visitor’s card. 

‘Tardon me,” he said, ''but are you Ky any chance 
that Hector Wade who . . 

"I am!” came the terse reply. "What about it ?” 

"Only that the British-Indian government has a cer¬ 
tain prestige to keep up in the North, in Central Asia 
—with Russia so infernally close, you know. We 
can’t grant passports to”—^he coughed; then, brutally 
—"to people of your kidney, Mr. Wade. What would 
the natives think of us? Good day, sir.” 

And, as Hector was about to cross the threshold: 

"By the way, no use trying to cross the border 
without a passport. I am going to have you watched. 
Fair warning, don’t you know.” 

He turned to his assistant after Hector had left: 

"I wager long odds that young beggar made up his 
mind to go North, passport or no passport. Jolly de¬ 
termined looking, what? Too bad he did that foolish, 
caddish thing. Such a frightful waste of material 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES iii 

/ 

from an imperial point of view. Oh, well—we’ll have 
him shadowed. We can’t afford to have chaps like 
him floatin’ loose about Asia—what with these stink¬ 
ing Babus preaching home rule and our beloved white 
Babus home in England helping them and all 
that . . 

Sir James was a good physiognomist. He had read 
Hector’s thoughts correctly. For, somehow, the 
other’s refusal to issue him a passport had only 
strengthened his stubborn resolution to go North, to 
cross the Himalayas, to look beyond the ranges for 
the chance which England and Indja, the Empire, 
denied him. 

Yes. He would go. 

But—^how ? 

For even if he managed to evade Sir James Rivet- 
Carnac’s watchers, there was the vital question of 
money, since the ocean journey, including the tips 
aboard and other incidental expenses, and his five 
days’ stay in Calcutta, had practically exhausted the 
money which Ali Yusuf Khan had lent him. 

‘'What shall I do? How can I go?” 

He asked himself the question as he looked from 
the balcony of his room, out into the night cloaked 
streets whence rose a confused mingling of sounds: 
voices in many languages, rising, then decreasing, the 
shouts of itinerant fruit and lemonade venders, the 
tinkle-tinkle-tinkle of some woman’s glass bracelets, a 
shred of laughter flung carelessly to the winds, a sud¬ 
den dramatic shriek . . . 

The sounds leaped up to his ear—^the sounds of^ 


112 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


India, of Asia—cruel, beckoning, mysterious, scented, 
fascinating, portentous, inexplicable— 

The rune of Asia—and how could he resist the call 
of it? 

Something tugged at his soul. 

If he had wings to fly from the window, to launch 
himself across the purple haze of the town, to alight 
on some flat roof, then to rise again and swing out 
and beyond on the sweep of the northbound wind 
across the great Indian peninsula; over the central 
jungles that stretched like a great sea of vegetation, an 
entangled, exuberant blending of leaves and spiky 
creepers and waxen, musky flowers, a rolling wave of 
green life; over the perfumed valley of Kashmere, 
the foot-hills that rolled down like enormous, over¬ 
lapping planes; clear across the carved, sardonic im¬ 
mensities of the Himalayas where the harried ^un hid 
and shivered amongst the northern snows . . . and 
out into the heart of Asia ... if he had wings to 
fly! 

‘What shall I do? How can I go?’’ 

Again he asked himself the question, and, suddenly, 
he thought of Ali Yusuf Khan’s parting words: 

“Trust the blade. It will speak to you when man 
fails you—or Fate.” 

He felt slightly self-conscious, slightly ludicrous. 
For he was an ''Englishman, a European, an average 
Occidental swinging, intellectually and emotionally, 
half way between Christianity and biology, and what 
was all this painted, twisted, mazed Oriental tommyrot 


[THE MATING OF THE BLADES 113 

to him? All this mad talk about trusting a dagger, 
asking a senseless, lifeless length of forged steel to 
speak to him! 

His hand fingered the hilt of the weapon—^he had 
not unsheathed it since that night in Coal Yard 
Street—while his mind, like a captive bird, was beat¬ 
ing against the cage bars of his prosy, two-and-two-is- 
four intelligence, his typically British refusal to believe 
the incredible—even after he had seen it happen. 

Then his lips curled in a lop-sided smile. 

“Oh, well,” he murmured, apologetically, in the 
general direction of the moon that was racing through 
the clouds like delicate ivory flotsam, “it can’t hurt,” 
and he drew the blade from the jeweled shagreen 
scabbard into which Ali Yusuf Khan had fitted it and, 
from a piece of silver wire scroll work just below the 
hilt where it had been wedged, a paper fluttered to the 
ground. 

Mechanically he picked it up, and saw that there 
were words on it, in Persian, signed “Ali Yusuf 
Khan,” and read^; 

“If you need help, go to the house of Mehmet Iddrissy 
Khan. You will find him in the house at the end of Hyder 
Ahmet’s Gully, in the Colootallah section, beyond the Machua 
Bazaar.” 

Hector gave a low laugh. He did not know why he 
laughed; did not have time to psychologize about it. 
For, the next second, he had picked up his hat, left 
the room and the hotel, and was out into the smoky, 
purple, fantastic Indian night, while, two seconds later, 
his mind and body acting together with almost un- 


114 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 

canny precision, he remembered Sir James Rivet- 
Carnac’s warning that he would be followed, turned 
swiftly beneath the haggard light of a street lamp, 
saw that a short, lean Madrassi was slinking close be¬ 
hind him, and had the point of his blade on the man’s 
windpipe. 

‘‘Be careful,” he whispered, “this knife may slip. 
Talk just as if we were friends.” 

“Yes, saheb.” The man’s teeth clicked together 
like castanets. 

“All right. Now—answer quick and low. From 
the police, aren’t you?” 

“Yes, saheb.” 

“Anybody else following me ?” 

“No, saheb.” 

“Sure you are speaking the truth?” 

“Yes, yes, yes! By Vishnu and Shiva!”—as the 
blade was pricking his skin. 

“Good. Now come along. And walk gently—be 
careful or . . .” 

And he walked the Madrassi away from the Great 
Eastern Hotel and into a little, shadow-blotched park 
which he had visited earlier in the day and which was 
deserted, except for the ubiquitous crows. 

“Sorry I have to be rough,” he said; and, the next 
minute, he had him on his back, had him gagged 
securely with his handkerchief and the heavy leather 
gloves he carried in his pocket; tore off the man’s 
turban cloth and waist shawl, and tied him hand and 
foot. 

Then, very leisurely, he left the park and walked 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 115 


to Old Court House Street where he asked the stolid 
English policeman the way to the Colootallah. 

‘Tlace there called Hyder Ahmet’s Gully, isn’t it?” 

“Yes, sir. But I wouldn’t go there if I were you, 
sir.” 

“Why not?” 

“Because,” replied the policeman, who had twenty 
years’ Calcutta service to his record, “it is the rottenest, 
stinkingest, most unregenerate patch of crime in our 
whole East Indian Empire. Because a white man ain’t 
safe there—leastways this time of night, sir. Oh, 
well”—as Hector insisted—“it’s your own fimeral. 
You go down through the Burra Bazaar—” 

“I know where that is—” 

“Past the Jora Bagan and the Machua . . and he 
gave the directions as precisely as if it had feeen 
London. 

“Thank you.” 

And a pleasant tinkle of silver, and Hector was off 
toward the Burra Bazaar at a good round clip, and 
bidding farewell to the white man’s Calcutta, to Gov¬ 
ernment House and green tea and respectability. 

On he walked, past the Jora Bagan and the Machua, 
and plunged into a network of narrow streets where 
the poor, unwashed, and diseased of all India’s motley 
races seemed to live together in friendship and evil 
odors. Not many lights stole through the shuttered 
balconies of the packed, greasy houses. Overhead, be¬ 
tween the two facades, he saw a strip of paleness 
which evidently was doing duty for a bit of moonlit 
sky. 


lie THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


“Where is Hyder Ahmef s Gully ?” he asked a native. 

“Over there, saheb!” 

The man pointed and, with a word of thanks, Hector 
was off again, through streets that grew steadily more 
narrow and crooked, with a glimpse of smoky, dis¬ 
couraged sky above the roof tops revealing scarcely 
three yards of breadth, the roadway ankle deep in 
squidgy, sticky blue slime, beggars and roughs and 
lepers slinking and pushing against him, and a fetid 
stink hanging over it all like an evil pall; until, di¬ 
rected by another native who, like the policeman, gave 
him good-natured warning and advised him to return 
to his hotel, he found himself in Hyder Ahmet Khan's 
Gully, a long, crooked cul-de-sac that ran the gamut 
of white-washed walls without windows or doors, 
mysterious, useless looking, and that was sealed at the 
farther end by a tall, lonely house, rising into the 
purple welter of the night with an immense abandon 
of fretted, tortured stone and masonry work, with 
bird's-nest balconies and crazy, twisted, bulbous roofs 
and spires, the whole thing typically Hindu in its 
maniacal, architectural extravagance. 

Not a soul was about. There was not even a sound. 
It was as if all life had been cut short at the entrance 
of the Gully, and everything Hector was—racially, 
traditionally, culturally—^bristled within him. He saw 
a glimmer of burnished metal, bent, looked, and saw 
that it was the lock of a door set low into the house, to 
the left of it a brass plate with the name of Mehmet 
Iddrissy Khan engraved in Persian letters, to the right 
an old-fashioned, iron knocker. 

He stood imdecided, rather frightened. Somehow, 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 117 

he felt that it was this door which stood between life 
as he had known it heretofo-re and the life of the 
future—whatever the future might bring. 

Should he take the—^yes—^the plunge For it was 

that. 

Again he hesitated. Then, suddenly, a wisp of 
laughter drifted out of the nowhere, a woman's 
laughter, soft, tinkling, silvery, and he took a deep 
J)reath like a man about to dive, and lifted the door 
knocker—brought it down sharply— banng !—with a 
dull, portentous thud; and, a few moments later, from 
the inside, came the brushing of feet, a cough, and the 
door opened to disclose a tall, elderly Hindu who was 
holding in his right hand a flickering oil lamp and who 
surveyed the late visitor with suspicion. 

“What do you wish ?" he asked, and Hector thought 
it typical of the neighborhood, the Colootallah, that the 
man did not use the courteous “saheb." 

“I wish to speak to Mehmet Iddrissy Khan/’ 

“About what ?" 

Hector flared up. 

“None of your confounded business,” He cried; then, 
as the other was about to close the door, he stopped 
him with a gesture, laughed, drew the blade from his 
pocket and gave it, hilt foremost, to the other. 

“Show this to your master,” he said. “Tell him it 
is all the credentials I have.” 

“Very well;” and the Hindu shut the door in Hec¬ 
tor's face. 

Sector waited. Afterwards He used to say that, 
had it not been for the fact that the other had taken 


ii8 iTHE MATING OF JHE BLADES 


the blade with him, he would have walked away as 
fast as his legs would have let him. But—'‘the blade 
was an integral part of me, don’t you see?” he would 
add. 'T couldn’t have left without it. Of course 
not. That bit of steel had stuck by me.” 

He did not have to wait long. For, a minute later, 
the door opened again, and this time the Hindu 
salaamed deeply, and there was something almost like 
awe in his opaque eyes, and respect in his voice as he 
bade the other enter. 

"Thy people are sick with longing for thee, saheb!” 
he said in purring Persian. "Careful, Protector of 
the Pitiful! The steps are slippery!” 

And, the lamp high in his hand and throwing flicker¬ 
ing, fantastic shadows, he led Hector through a laby¬ 
rinth of rooms, some of them ablaze with raw, clash¬ 
ing colors, others in dull, somber shades which melted 
into each other; through wide corridors, supported by 
pillars whose capitals were shaped into pendant lotus 
forms, or crowned with lateral struts carved into the 
likenesses of horsemen or war-girt elephants. There 
was furniture of all ages and climes, from century old 
sandal-wood pieces chip-carved into flat relief to mas¬ 
sive tables topped with slabs of Bokharan lapis lazuli; 
from wonderful, old, red Chinese lac to, here and 
there, a horribly clashing, cheap European incongruity 
. . . certainly a very wealthy man’s house, decided 
Hector. 

Once or twice they encountered native servants in 
rainbow-colored silks, who stepped aside and salaamed 
with extended hands, but even in those rooms which 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 119 

were empty of human life Hector was maddeningly 
conscious of watching eyes and listening ears. He 
said something of the sort to his guide who smiled. 

'This is India, saheb,’’ he said. “This is an Indian 
house. Day and night, it is full of eyes and ears.” 
He stopped. “Look. Listen.” 

He pointed at a bulFs-eye cut low in an unexpected 
wall. He coughed loudly. There was a rustle of 
silken garments, and the noise of bare feet pattering 
away. 

Another time, when directly between his feet Hector 
heard a sound of deep breathing, the Hindu showed 
him a tiny peep-hole in the mosaic work which covered 
the floor. 

“A servant’s servant,” he whispered, “listening to 
the gossip of the inner rooms, so as to bring a report 
to his superior, another report to another superior, still 
another, until it finally reaches the right ear.” 

“Whose?” came the blunt question. 

“The ear of the Princess Aziza Nurmahal, ruler of 
Tamerlanistan;” and, just as Hector was dim-groping 
in his memory where he had heard that last word, 
just as some recess in his brain flashed back the reply 
that Mr. Preserved Higgins had mentioned it a second 
before Hector’s fist had hit him between the eyes and 
stretched him unconscious on the London pavement, 
the Hindu repeated: 

“The Princess Aziza Nurmahal, ruler of Tamer¬ 
lanistan !” with a loud voice, like a herald, drew aside 
a brocade curtain stiff jvith embroidery, and motioned 
the other to enter. 


^ 120 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 

Hector stepped across the threshold, while his guide 
salaamed and disappeared. 

Curled upon a couch, he saw a slim young girl, 
dressed native style in a sari of pale, rose-colored silk, 
shot with orange and violet and bordered with tiny 
seed pearls. Her face was small and round and ex¬ 
quisitely chiseled. Her hair was parted in the middle 
and of a glossy, bluish black, mingled with flowers and 
jewels. 

She rose at HectoFs approach, smiled, and walked 
up to him. It was evident that she expected the Eng¬ 
lishman to speak; for an eager light was in her im¬ 
mense, black eyes; her narrow hands fluttered like 
butterflies; her lips were half open. 

Hector coughed. He did not know what to say, 
did not know wljat to make of the whole situation. 
He had expected to find some wealthy native merchant 
who needed a young Englishman for his business; 
perhaps an elderly Brahmin who wanted a tutor for 
his son; perhaps some semi-independent Indian prince¬ 
ling who wished to avail himself of his military train- 
ing. 

But—to be ushered, in the middle of the night, into 
the presence of a young girl, a young girl of the Orient, 
a princess ? 

And to find her alone, and unveiled ? 

Why—it was incredible; and, momentarily, a sordid, 
unworthy thought flashed through his mind, to be 
quickly scotched as he looked at her friendly open face. 

But he was tongue-tied, and then, quite suddenly, 
she threw her arms about his neck, drew his head 
down, and kissed him full on the lips. 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 121 


‘T have waited for thy coming, my lord,” she said, 
in a low, musical voice. ‘T have waited long 1 ” 

And Hector did exactly what any other clean bred, 
self-conscious young Briton would have done under 
the circumstances. 

He blushed a painful brick-red, tried to remove the 
gentle pressure from around his neck, and murmured 
something very foolish and entirely inadequate: 

‘Tlease! I say—^you mustn’t—^you knov^ . . ^ 

positively mid-Victorian. 

And the girl broke into a peal of irrepressible 
laughter. 

‘‘It was not the kiss of the love of passion, my lord,” 
she said. “It was the kiss of a sister’s love.” 

“A—sister’s love?” 

He felt more clumsy, less sure of himself, than ever. 

“Yes!” the princess looked at him, utterly serious. 
“For we are sister and brother, thou and 11 Rocked 
in the same cradle of Fate! Mated to Fate by the 
wooing of swords!” 

Words which were quite without sense or meaning 
to The Honorable Hector Wade who, at that moment, 
was* wishing fervently that he were back on the yellow, 
sandy Downs of Sussex. 


CHAPTER X 


Telling how Romance comes to those who accept it, ask¬ 
ing no questions, and how a grown man returns to life, as a 
newborn child. 

The very next moment, with startling suddenness, 
Hector passed from the stage of boyish, awkward, 
rather petty embarrassment to one of tremendous, 
voiceless excitement. 

Not for the slightest fraction of a second did he 
lose his grip on his natural, perceptive faculties, did 
he forget his sober English commonsense. On the 
contrary, straight through, his five senses worked 
liarmoniously together. Even while his eyes saw on 
a low taboret not far from him the ancient blade which 
had been his ‘'Open Sesame!’' ever since he had left 
the house of his ancestors, while his hand, almost 
automatically, picked it up and returned it to his 
pocket, his brain flashed the message that he should 
ask this tiny, picturesque bit of Oriental womanhood 
bluntly to tell him what she meant by her mysterious 
words. 

Already his lips had shaped the query: “What do 
you ... ?” when, instantaneously, an abstruse some¬ 
thing in his soul surged up and submerged the tail end 
of his sentence in a bizarre, yet deliberate decision, 
realization rather, that he must accept whatever Fate 
had in store for him unquestioningly. 

122 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 123 

He bowed low before the princess. 

‘T, too, have waited long,” he said, “waited long 
for the wooing of swords!” 

And, strangely, incongruously, though at the time 
there was no sense to him in his own words, he felt, he 
knew, that he was not telling a lie, that he was not act¬ 
ing a part, that a hidden, yet enormously vital element 
of his inner consciousness had dictated the words—out 
of a terribly intense, terribly ancient, terribly pro¬ 
longed yearning. 

Neither then, nor during the baroque, twisted ad¬ 
ventures of the weeks to come, did he stop to analyze 
why thus, without a question, without a concise doubt, 
without a demand for explanation, without natural, 
normal curiosity even, he bowed his head before this 
strange Fate that had come to him out of the purple 
Indian night—with a young Oriental princess’ soft 
kiss, with her dim words about Brother and Sister and 
the Wooing of Swords. 

Later on, he would try to explain it out of existence 
by saying that the romance, the flaming spirit of the 
moment, had carried him away as the wind carries 
away brittle leaves; that his old life was dead, that 
here beckoned the cresset of a new life which he must 
follow, untrammeled by the past, untrammeled even 
by the desires and doubts and natural reactions of the 
past. 

And this attempt at explanation was palpably 
wrong; was the bitter fruit of his racial English in¬ 
hibition . to be as logical and inquisitive and truth¬ 
seeking in psychic, as he was in mental and physical, 


124 the mating of the blades 


matters. Had it not been for this racial inhibition, 
this artificial, typically Anglo-Saxon restraint, he 
would have told himself that, the very moment he saw 
Aziza Nurmahal, the very moment he heard her fan¬ 
tastic, incongruous greeting, the impression came to 
him that he had lived through all this before and that 
the answer to it was not in the princess' life, not in 
his own, not in any one individual’s puny, negligible 
existence, but in the throbbing, eternal life of Asia. 

He would have told himself that which, sub- 
psychically, he knew to be the truth: namely, that this 
Asia was not a mere Continent, steaming and flaunting 
and sweating beneath the coppery sun of the tropics, 
not a mere geographical or political term, but a Being; 
a giant Being, with pulses and feelings and motley 
ambitions of its own; and that he, Hector Wade, Eng¬ 
lishman out of Sussex, and reputed card-cheater, was 
an integral part of this Being. 

Thus his /Subconscious thoughts, those thoughts 
which he was ashamed to shape even in the secrecy 
and close intimacy of his own soul; while the princess 
clapped her hands and, a moment later, a tall, elderly 
Moslem, green turbaned, simply dressed, came into the 
room. There was something about him, less an actual, 
physical resemblance, than in his easy charm of man¬ 
ner and the strange, attractive mingling of kindliness 
and shrewdness that glistened in his eyes and played 
about his lips, which reminded Hector of Ali Yusuf 
Khan. 

Aziza Nurmahal ran up to him, and took both his 
hands in hers. 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 125 

*‘The saheb has decided, Mehmet Iddrissy Khan,’* 
she said, vivaciously, joyously. "‘He, too, has waited 
long for the wooing of swords!” 

She turned to the Englishman as if asking him to 
confirm her words, and the latter suppressed a grim, 
sardonic smile. 

The wooing of swords—^he thought to himself— 
rather like some dashed Greek tragedy chorus, and 
about as intelligible to him, chiefly considering that he 
had never been exactly tophole at the classics! 

But, what reason did he have to vent his mocking, 
unhappy humor on these people, who trusted him, 
surely trusted him, since they had let him, the saheb, 
the Christian, the foreigner, who was an outcast from 
his own land, into the jealously guarded intimacy of 
their Oriental household—and at night—with no 
credentials except an ancient weapon with a blurred, 
golden pattern on hilt and blade? And there was 
something so anxiously appealing in the girl’s hooded, 
sable eyes, something so pathetically expectant in 
Mehmet Iddrissy Khan’s shrewd, gray, gold-flecked 
eyes, and, finally, something in his own soul, so 
abstrusely compelling and jubilantly reckless, that his 
spoken words gave no inkling of the ironic thoughts 
that had flashed through his mind. 

“Yes!” he said, looking straight at the others. 

And he added, in purring, gliding Persian metaphor, 
in that cannily hyperbolic manner dear to turbaned and 
maddeningly annoying to hatted humanity: 

“What I could not find in the written book, the 
blade whispered to me. My eyes were red and swollen 
with the revel of pain and despair, my soul was a 


ti26 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


bloated and useless thing, my life a blackened crucible 
—but the blade flashed free, and I heard the muffled, 
sobbing drums of victory!’" 

‘‘Rather neatly turned, that!” he said to himself, 
with a fleeting recurrence to his disturbing, saturnine 
mood, while Mehmet Iddrissy Khan raised lean, brown 
hands. 

“Praise Allah!” he said, sonorously. “Praised be 
Allah, die Just, the All-Seeing, the All-Powerful, the 
King of the Day of Judgment, the Holder of the 
Scales of Mercy and of Wisdom with the Strength of 
His Hands, the Opener of the Locks of Souls with 
the golden Keys of His Understanding!”—and, in 
that typically Oriental way which so distresses Euro¬ 
peans and which permits its possessor to pass rapidly, 
without jarring break and without the slightest feeling 
of ludicrousness or self-consciousness, from a gorge¬ 
ously epic or religious height to the level, drab plane 
of constructive, logically reasoning practicability: 

“Time presses, saheb. When wilt thou be ready to 
start for the North, for Central Asia?” 

“To-night,” replied Hector, “this very minute,” 
thinking with bitter satisfaction that there was nothing 
West of the Howrah Bridge or East of Fort William 
to keep him in Calcutta except—yes!—he added in his 
mind, then with the spoken word: 

“Passport! What about a passport? I talked to 
Rivet-Carnac to-day and . . .” 

''InsKallah!” Mehmet Iddrissy Khan cut through 
the sentence with a wagging, derisive thumb on which 
twinkled a great star sapphire. 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 127^ 

''The little, little, little jackal howls,’’ he said, 
sententiously, metaphorically, "but—tell me—will my 
old buffalo die therefore?” 

And, while Hector laughed at the simile and the 
princess looked from one of the two men to the other, 
smiling, very much with the satisfied air of a hostess 
who has introduced two congenial souls to each other, 
he continued: 

"Doubtless Rivet-Carnac saheb is fifteen devils —and 
a pig. But we—we of the North . . 

"We are sixteen pukka devils—without as much as 
the pig’s smell!” softly interrupted Hector to whom 
the half forgotten lore of bazaar jests and bazaar 
quips and slang was returning with every minute. 

"Good, by the teeth of God!” exclaimed the older 
man, hugging the Englishman to his thick chest. 
"Thou art a man after my own heart—a twister of 
words 1 A turner of neat phrases! And—an honest 
man! For only an honest man can twist words for 
the right purpose! Thou hast a good head on thy 
shoulders—” 

"And a good head has a thousand hands,” suggested 
the princess. 

"Rightly said, rejoicer of hearts! A thousand 
hands—and each bearing a gift or a sword for Tamer- 
lanistan! But, to return to Rivet-Carnac, to return, 
by the same token, to the jackal —and the pig, there 
may be no passport for Hector Wade. Yet—what 
need will there be of passports and talk and babble of 
passports to a young prince of the Gengizkhani clan, 
returning to his own land, vouched for by myself, a 
respectable and wealthy man and a member of the 


128 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 

Legislative Council of the Calcutta Municipality, 
decorated, deservedly, with the Star of the Indian Em¬ 
pire? A young prince, furthermore, who travels in 
the retinue of the ruling princess of Tamerlanistan! 
The jackal —and the pig—will bow their filth-scabbed 
necks. And the British Raj will also bow—for Cen¬ 
tral Asia is Central Asia . . 

“And the Russian squints down from the North!” 
smiled Hector. “I understand 1 ” 

“As I knew thou wouldst! And now, follow me, 
young heart of my old heart, and”—running a sly hand 
over the other's flannel-clad shoulder—“we’ll change 
these foreign clothes of yours into a dress more be¬ 
fitting a prince of the Gengizkhani.” 

Three hours later, with the sudden young sun of 
the tropics splintering out of the east and all Calcutta 
awakening and sitting up to its daily round of abusing 
itself, the Government, and the weather. Hector Wade 
was sitting in a low victoria drawn by a brace of 
squealing, shaggy, rat-like, up-country ponies. He 
was dressed as became a rollicking, rich young Central 
Asian prince come to Calcutta to see the sights, to 
buy useless goods and, perchance, get drunk on 
foreign wine; from immense, black Persian lamb cap 
to yellow leather slippers with coquettishly upturned 
toes, from richly embroidered waistband, with the hilt 
of the ancient blade showing grimly above it, to open¬ 
work silk socks in hopeful cerise, from the foppish 
sprig of rose-geranium behind his left ear to the great, 
flat-cut canary diamond that twinkled on his thumb. 
By his side sat the Princess Aziza Nurmahal in a 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 129 

traveling sari of gray- and green-striped muslin, the 
soft flower of her face ‘Veiled against the inquisitive 
glances of this stinking Southland,’^ to quote Mehmet 
Iddrissy Khan who had bid them good-by on the thres¬ 
hold of his house in the Colootallah. 

They were followed by another roomy carriage that 
held a dozen of the princess’ chattering, giggling, 
betel chewing servants under the command of Mahsud 
Hakki, a huge, crimson-turbaned Nubian eunuch who 
performed his office with a great deal of pompous 
dignity and without the slightest sense of humor— 
which latter failing had no effect whatsoever on the 
servants, who talked to each other and, when the 
carriage pulled up at the railway station, to their mis¬ 
tress, with all the startling, democratic familiarity of 
the Orient; too, with all the primitive indelicacy in 
regard to matters physical of that same Orient. 

Talking loudly and pointing shameless and decidedly 
grimy fingers, they mentioned, in Hector’s plain hear¬ 
ing, that he —''Al Nakia” they called him and the 
Englishman hunted in vain through his Persian and 
Behari vocabulary to find what the word meant— 
would be a fairly good-looking man, only: 

“Thy nose is too thin, like the rawhide whips the 
Tajik caravan men use to spank their lean camels’ 
lean buttocks, and thy belly is like a flattened purse!” 
remarked a toothless, withered hag who had the 
princess’ jewels in her care; while a grizzled, gnarled 
old Persian woman, who was entrusted with Aziza 
Nurmahal’s compact silver-and-enamel traveling water 
pipe, said, passionlessly, as one stating a fact known to 
all the world,; 


130 lTHE mating of THE BLADES 


^Tf, when I was young and my heart had never a 
crack, a man such as thou, A 1 Nakia, had whispered 
words of passion in my ear, I would have told him to 
first fill his gullet with rich meats, and then I would 
have said to him . . —something decidedly im¬ 
proper which sent everybody, including the princess 
and half-a-dozen stray Calcutta natives of various 
castes and complexions, into fits of riotous, Asiatic 
laughter; and Hector himself joined—was rather glad 
of it, in fact, for it proved that these people had ac¬ 
cepted him as one of their own, that to them he was 
not the saheb who must be kowtowed to in public hnd 
cruelly, mercilessly derided and parodied in private. 

Then a wave of excitement, inside the station, while 
they squabbled with the railway porters and guards 
and ticket punchers over baggage and ice and bedding 
and hubble-bubbles and baskets of food and goglets 
of water and a number of mysterious, strongly scented 
packages, which the railway officials declared could 
under no circumstances be stowed away into the 
‘‘te-rain, the valuable property of the honorable saheb- 
log’s railway company—no, no!—under no conditions 
whatsoever!’^ while the Tamerlani servants swore by 
all the Saints of Shia Islam and by a variety of rather 
more worldly oaths that, come what may, everything 
would be stowed away where they could see it. 

“For we know well you thieving, lousy Southern 
piglings—you eaters of unclean abominations—^you 
cursed worshipers of a flower and a ring-tailed mon¬ 
key! You could steal food from between our lips, and 
our insides would be none the wiser! Away, spawn 
of leprous gutter rats, indelicate, especially unbeautiful. 


JHE MATING OF JHE BLADES 131 

and lacking in refinement! This is a princess from 
the North traveling in state with her own people—a 
pukka princess—and not a sniveling, unimportant 
Maharanee from the South. Away!’' 

'Tt is against regulation seventeen, paragraph 
eight!” cried a Babu railway clerk, brown faced, agate 
eyed, very fat and oily, and clad in white gauze which, 
considering his fantastic bodily contours, gave him a 
grotesque and not at all decent appearance. ‘‘Regula¬ 
tion says that . . 

And he was promptly and vituperatively told what 
to do with the regulation, with the book which included 
it, the saheb who had written it; and when, in a 
magnificent flight of Bengali imagination, the Babu 
swore by Shiva and Vishnu and Brahm that the 
Viceroy himself insisted on this particular rule in re¬ 
gard to baggage being carried cut to the letter, the 
keeper of the princess’ jewels told him, in a stage 
whisper, that, the very next time she came to Calcutta, 
she would call on the Viceroy and make him eat stick! 

Hector, meanwhile, had been talking to Aziza Nur- 
mahal who, in answer to his question, replied that A 1 
Nakia was a Tartar word, the aboriginal language of 
Tamerlanistan, and that it meant “The Expected.” 

“Expected—by whom ?” puzzled Hector. 

“But surely thou knowest—why—” She seemed a 
little surprised. “Expected—according to the ancient 
prophecy! Expected—to seal the wooing of swords!” 

“More mystifying, unintelligible wooing of swords 
stuff!” thought Hector, while the princess complicated 
matters yet more by saying: 

“These servants can be trusted. They were my 


132 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 

father’s slaves. They know all about thy blade”— 
touching its hilt where it protruded from Hector’s 
waist shawl—‘^and, too, about the other blade!” 

“The other blade!” thought Hector. “As if this 
one wasn’t enough.” 

Then, with a loud voice f 

“One thing is sure. I shall have to stop this in¬ 
cipient racial war if we intend to take the train.” 

He gave a few rapid, decisive orders to both the 
railway officials and the servants. The latter trium¬ 
phantly piled all the baggage, including a screeching, 
mangy parrot in a rickety bamboo cage which the pipe 
woman had bought the last moment from a grinning, 
splay-footed jungly-Bhil, into a first-class compart¬ 
ment, very much to the disgust of its occupant, a 
majestic Anglo-Indian lady with a Wellingtonian beak 
who decided to write a letter about it to the Times of 
India as soon as she reached her husband’s hill station. 
Everybody went aboard, the princess in one compart¬ 
ment with one woman servant and the eunuch who, 
immediately, pulled down the rattan window shades 
tight, the rest of the servants in a second compartment, 
and Hector himself in a third, alone but for the com¬ 
pany of one of the princess’ people, a red-faced, stony- 
eyed Tartar who at once squatted on his haunches, at 
Hector’s feet, stuffed his huge mouth full with finely 
cut pan and promptly fell asleep. 

Fifteen minutes earlier, the Eurasian station master 
had shouted himself hoarse with: 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 133 

‘'All aboard the te-rain—for Lahore, Rawalpindi, 
and the North 

Fifteen times he had blown his shiny, official silver 
whistle. 

Fifteen minutes it had taken to solve the quarrel be¬ 
tween the railway people and the Tamerlani; fifteen 
more to rescue some of the former from the hands 
of a party of ruffianly, drunken Rajputs whom they 
had tried to overcharge. 

And yet another fifteen minutes elapsed before the 
train finally got under way with a wheezy cough. 

For this was India, this was the East, to whom all 
Time, including railway time tables, also including the 
eternities, is only a matter of yawn and stretch and 
shrug, and to whom hurry is an ungentlemanly pastime 
of Western barbarians. 

On then, to the North! 

Through the stark, swollen, heat-scorched yellow¬ 
ness of Bengal, with fleeting glimpses of blue-garbed 
natives tilling the fields and patient buffaloes turning 
the water wheels and once in a while a squat, shimmer¬ 
ing city seen vaguely through the delicate tracery of 
the trees! 

A night and a day and another night, during which 
Hector saw nothing of the princess who, since there 
were Christians and Hindus and Eurasians, foreigners 
all, aboard, was respecting the proper customs of 
purdah and harem, of veil and woman's seclusion 
under the Nubian's jealous eyes, but who sent him 
frequent, joyful, hopeful messages through the ser¬ 
vants who brought him food . . . while the train 


134 the mating of THE BLADES 

rolled out into the Indian desert, between white, rush- 
tipped hillocks, with the fantastic, red granite moun¬ 
tains of Rajputana stabbing the far horizon with 
twisted peaks. 

A strange land, a motley land, which Hector had 
not seen since he was a child. A land of too much 
color, gold and heliotrope and lake and purple, picked 
out with glaring white high lights, nicked with sulphur 
yellow and glaucous green, and edged with chocolate 
brown and luminous blues. 

But Hector Wade had no eyes for the landscape. 
For—was it impulse? yVsiS it instinct—or imagina¬ 
tion? 

He did not know. Did not even try to analyze. 

He only knew that a great, portentous voice was 
calling to him across the distance, from the North be¬ 
yond the snow-bound Afghan mountain passes, and 
it called with the language of the past—^and the future 
. . . with the steely, swishing sob of crossing blades. 

A puissant and compelling force surged through 
him. It came from the outside, springing, neverthe¬ 
less, from something of which he was a living, throb¬ 
bing part, suffusing him with deep, triumphant joy 
. . . and it was, suddenly, with an almost physical 
shock, that he realized how with every mile the West, 
England, his old life, his old interests, his old customs 
and reactions and prejudices, were slipping away from 
him . . . they —and Jane Warburton! The girl who 
was dearer to him than the dwelling of kings! 

He loved her—and now he had lost her, for ever, 
and his heart was like a house without any light, where 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 135 

his desires and passions wandered about, like lonely 
children lost in the dark . . . 

“Next stop Rawalpindi came the Eurasian railway 
guard’s strident voice. “Change trains there for 
Peshawar and the North!” 

Oh, well—Hector shrugged his shoulders, as if al¬ 
ready the fatalistic East had submerged his soul—it 
had to be. 

His old life was dead, and his new life had begun. 
And it must be untrammeled—by the past, the likes 
and dislikes, the endeavors and ambitions of the past. 

Untrammeled even by—the love of the past? 

No, no! His love could never be of the past. It 
was of the present, the future, all shoreless eternity. 
His love was a living thing, would ever be a living 
thing, come what may. 

Why, he couldn’t do without Jane. She was the 
breath of life itself to him and . . . 

Hector Wade kicked himself in the shin. 

“I am a silly ass,” he remarked, at a little wayside 
station, to a crimson necked vulture that was sitting on 
a low wall, flopping its dirt-gray wings and making 
improper noises in its scrawny throat. “Hector Wade 
is dead and forgotten. There is only A 1 Nakia left!” 

“AlNakia!” 

He repeated the word aloud, and the Tartar ser¬ 
vant sat up and rubbed his sleepy eyes. 

“Didst thou call, my lord?” he asked. 


CHAPTER XI 


Mainly about shoes and ships and sealing wax, and cabbages 
and kings. 

Just about the time when Hector and his party 
were changing trains for the Northern frontier at 
Rawalpindi Junction, beset by a crowd of natives in 
every conceivable state of ruffianly raggedness and im¬ 
ploring in every known and some unknown dialects to 
be hired as porters, guides, dog boys, sweepers, 
grooms, butlers, cooks, and tailors, Sir James Rivet- 
Carnac sat facing Mr. Ezra W. Warburton and the 
latter's daughter in their suite at the Hotel Semiramis, 
busy with a small cup of coffee and a large glass of 
brandy, while the American was busy with a large 
cup of coffee and a small glass of brandy—thus both 
gentlemen somehow illustrating the divergent char¬ 
acteristics in matters bibulous of the two branches of 
the Anglo-Saxon race. 

Sir James beamed. Sir James smiled. Sir James 
talked softly. Sir James waved pudgy, courteous 
hands. 

For not only had the dinner been perfect, from 
turtle soup to an odorous Kashmere curry with fresh 
vegetable chutney, but, furthermore, he was a sensible 
man, who respected wealth, and knew that Mr. War- 
burton represented powerful Anglo-American financial 
interests. 

‘‘Of course, my dear sir," he said. “There will be 
136 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 137 

no trouble about passports jEor yourself and your 
daughter. No trouble either about the journey—any¬ 
thing my department can do to make the trip com¬ 
fortable—anything at all—^pray command me 

He lit a fresh cigar. 

‘T have already said a word or two to the local 
agent of the Ameer of Afghanistan,” he went on, 
‘‘and you will be passed straight through that country. 
On the other hand ...” 

He coughed, and was silent for a few seconds, col¬ 
lecting his thoughts. 

He was in a quandary. 

For he was a servant of that intricate and ex¬ 
tremely complicated machinery for civilization, prog¬ 
ress, and the blessed average decencies called the 
British Empire, that world-flung organization which 
spreads like a fine-mesh net over the whole globe and 
in which, through logical consequence, there are many 
currents and undercurrents, often one government de¬ 
partment giving orders or recommendations completely 
at variance with those of another, every bit as im¬ 
portant, department. 

And, while he had received instructions from the 
India Office to put himself absolutely at the disposi¬ 
tion of Mr. Warburton and to make that gentleman’s 
trip to the North as easy and pleasant as possible, an¬ 
other department, closely connected with the Home 
Office in London, had asked him, quite sub rosa and 
quite decisively, to see to it that the American’s 
journey to Tamerlanistan should be delayed at least 
two or three months. 


138 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


Sir James did not know, could not know, that it 
was through the subterranean influence of an eccentric 
Cockney millionaire, Mr. Preserved Higgins, that the 
latter instructions had been sent him. But he did 
know that, unless he walked a delicate tight-rope be¬ 
tween the two departments, his dearest wish would 
not be realized at the next royal birthday honors: 
namely, a change from Sir James, Kt., to Sir James, 
Bart. 

Gently, therefore, he proceeded to hedge. 

“Mr. Warburton,’^ he said, “I understand that 
Tamerlanistan is rather in an unsettled condition just 
now. The old Ameer died, you know . . 

“Yes. I know.^’ 

“Well—we have no consular representative there— 
it makes it rather awkward for me . . 

“Don't worry," rejoined the financier. “I have my 
own man up there—Babu Chandra." 

“A Bengali?" 

“Yes." 

“Can you trust him? Not that I am trying to im¬ 
peach the man's honesty, but . . 

“I understand. Sir James. I know the sort of repu¬ 
tation the Babus have hereabouts. But my particular 
Babu is all right." 

“I am so glad," murmured Sir James—and lied. 

Presently, he tried a different method. 

“Mr. Warburton," he asked, “is your business in 
Tamerlanistan very pressing?" 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 139 

The other was a cautious man. 

“Why do you ask T* he countered, bluntly. 

“Oh—please—do not misunderstand me. I am not 
trying to pry into your affairs. But, whatever they 
are, I would like to know if they are very pressing— 
if there is any great hurry about them.” 

“A month or two makes no difference.” 

“Good!” exclaimed Sir James and, when the Ameri¬ 
can looked up with quick suspicion, he immediately 
proceeded to that operation which is vulgarly known 
as drawing a herring across one’s trail. 

“Mr. Warburton,” he purred, “you must forgive my 
—^how shall I put it . . . ?” 

“Butting in—that’s what we call it back home in 
America!” chimed in Jane, to her father’s horror. 

“Thank you, my dear lady.” Sir James was not at 
all embarrassed and, turning to her father: 

“We feel rather responsible for you, don’t you 
know.” 

“Awfully kind of you.” 

“Not at all, not at all. But—^there you are. With’ 
prominent international men like yourself—the—oh—• 
the responsibility . . 

“What are you driving at?” demanded Mr. Warbur¬ 
ton, again becoming suspicious. 

“Only that this is the very worst season of the year 
to travel about India. Cholera outbreak in Lahore, 
you know, and the heat and the flies and all that. 
Wait till after the monsoon . . .” 

“But—” 

“This brittle heat,” the other went on, smiling at 


140 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


his own shrewdness and thinking that right here he 
was going to even his score with Miss Warburton, 
‘‘is positively deadly to delicate complexions/’ 

“That settles it” said Jane, serenely. “We’ll wait 
till after the monsoons, shan’t we, dad ?” 

Mr. Warburton agreed. After all, he decided, there 
was no hurry and it would be better for him to wait 
until he had word from the Babu Chandra, and he had 
found out that Hector had left his hotel and, pre¬ 
sumably Calcutta, so that he needn’t be nervous in re¬ 
gard to his daughter. 

And so Sir James returned to attend to some late 
work at his office—where, a few days later, he frowned 
at a report telegraphed by one of his sub-agents sta¬ 
tioned at Peshawar, near the border of Afghanistan, 
which said that no person resembling Mr. Hector 
Wade had crossed the border or tried to; only the 
bi-weekly caravans for Kabul and Kandahar that filed 
through the Khybar Pass, and some independent 
Afghan, Sart, and Hindki traders with proper pass¬ 
ports. Furthermore, for a while to come, it would 
be impossible for said Hector Wade to get through the 
Khybar or any other of the minor Northwestern 
Province border stations as, because of some threaten¬ 
ing trouble with the tribesmen, nobody would be al¬ 
lowed, until further orders, to travel out of Peshawar 
for the North, with the exception of the reigning 
princess of Tamerlanistan, to whom British, Afghans, 
and warring tribesmen had granted the courtesy of 
free conduct. 

She was accompanied by her retinue and her cousin, 
the young prince A1 Nakia. 


lTHE mating of the blades 141 

By this time, the latter, alias^ Hector Wade, was 
becoming familiar with at least an inkling of what he 
was supposed to accomplish after he would have 
reached Tamerlanistan, though he was as ignorant as 
ever as to the special reasons why Fate, with Ali 
Yusuf Khan and an ancient blade playing Deputy- 
Fates, had chosen him as the instrument. 

The princess* party arrived in Peshawar on a Mon¬ 
day, early, just as morning came with the young sun 
gilding the carved struts of Kabul Gate, spiking a 
crimson diadem across the face of the lower Hima¬ 
layas, shooting a glimmering, yellow wedge of light 
down the length of the Khybar Pass, straight into 
the stony entrails of Afghanistan. 

They were evidently expected, for carriages met 
them at the station, and they drove rapidly, through 
that boisterous northern city which guards the gateway 
of India and seal's the southern end of the Khybar 
Pass that points straight, like a pistol, at the heart of 
Asia; through the whirling, choking dust that rose in 
clouds from the dirty streets; past crowds of ruffianly, 
swaggering border men, to the house of a wealthy 
Tamerlani tradesman who dealt in salt and hides and 
tea; and, shortly after their tiffin of mutton stewed 
in honey and seasoned with asafoetida, licorice water, 
sticky sweetmeats, and unripe melons had been served 
in their host’s pavilion, trouble came with a bearded 
Tajik courier’s official, peaked, black turban showing 
above the scraggly mellingtonia in the yard, and 
his throaty call: ‘^A visitor! A visitor for the 
princess!”—and, a minute later, the visitor arrived, 
atop a smelly, furry camel, yelling, cursing, using the 


142 rrHE MATING OF THE BLADES 


rawhide whip unmercifully, the animal trampling 
down flowers and shrubs and small trees in haste to 
reach the pavilion—where Aziza Nurmahal rose from 
her cushions and thrust the amber mouthpiece of her 
hubble-bubble which she was smoking into the hands 
of the nearest servant. 

''Bismillahr she exclaimed. 

She was excited, expectant, her flaring, nervous 
nostrils quivering like those of a blooded mare. 

To his dying day Hector Wade laughed at the 
memory of that scene. 

For, when the visitor hove in sight, he saw that it 
was not a man, but a woman. Past the Biblical age 
she was, lean as a panther, haggard, berry brown. 
The cavernous mouth that shouted loud, guttural 
greetings of ^'Salaam Aleikhoom! Salaam Alei- 
khoom! Yah Sidi! Yah Bibi! Yah MoslimaT 
showed two lonely teeth crimson with betel juice; a few 
wisps of gray hair escaped from beneath the immense, 
mannish fur cap that tilted at a rakish angle over her 
left brow; her wizened body, clad in a robe of coquet¬ 
tish rose-madder silk sadly torn and mud blotched, was 
perched audaciously between the humps of the satur¬ 
nine, Hebraic camel; on the hand that plied the raw- 
hide twinkled an immense off-color diamond in a ham¬ 
mered lead setting. 

“Down! Down on thy knees, O lust-scabbed spawn 
of a hyena and a bloated she-devil!” she addressed her 
mount that gave a wicked, grunting snarl, turned its 
swanlike neck with the evident intention of biting its 
rider’s scrawny hip, bent its forelegs suddenly double 


THE MATING OF JHE BLADES 143 

like a jack-knife, and shot the visitor neatly out of 
the saddle and directly at the feet of the princess who^ 
between laughter and tears, picked her up and hugged 
her to her breast. 

The older woman broke into a hectic torrent of 
speech; a mad mixture of extravagant terms of endear¬ 
ment—‘^‘Little pink-and-blue sweetmeat!’’ she called 
the princess, ‘‘little melon seed of delight! Little 
ivory moon of much sweetness! O thou soul of my 
soul! Thou blood of my liver!”—and bewailings of 
that cruel, stony Fate which had forced her, a woman 
of respectable years, respectable life, respectable an¬ 
cestry, and virginal innocence, to leave the “fat and 
warm security of the harem, to launch myself upon the 
bitter, bitter waters of adventure and fatigue and ex¬ 
tremely bad food, to cross the chilly mountain peaks 
of Afghanistan, to have rough, swine-fed Kabuli dogs 
crack low jokes to the detriment of my nose, to wrestle 
the many, weary miles with a stinking dromedary 
whose father was a wart and whose mother a most 
improper smell!” 

**Ahee — ahoo — ahai —and ten thousand first-class 
devils!” she shrilled, giving herself a violent blow 
across her flat, heaving chest. “And all because of 
that great and most evil grandson of a cockroach, 
Abderrahman Yahiah Khan, governor of the western 
marches!” 

And she called the governor a name that reflected 
fully as much^n her own morality and upbringing as 
on the other’s female relatives. ^ ^ 

On she raced in a mad, lashing jumble of words, 
while the seiwants, who saw Hector’s amused astonish- 


144 the mating of THE BLADES 


ment, told him that the woman was Aziza Nurmahal’s 
old nurse, Ayesha Zemzem, a Bakhtiari hill woman 
from the western wilds; too, gave him a richly colored 
and extravagantly embroidered account of how the 
princess had raised her to the rank of regent, with the 
honorable title of Zil-i-Sultana, ^‘Shadow of the 
Queen,’* and had afterwards reduced her to her 
former, humble position, because she had been in favor 
of granting ^^concessions” to the saheb-log. 

Hector whistled. 

“Concessions! Is that the rub in Tamerlanistan?” 
he thought. 

For he was familiar, through the number of Anglo- 
Indians and Anglo-Chinese he had known in London, 
with that phase of chronic misunderstanding between 
the Orient and the Occident. He rather sympathized 
with the former and had always held that it is not al¬ 
together altruistic to “carry the white man’s burden” 
with the help of cheap, stout native labor, cheaper 
raw material, and one hundred per cent yearly profits 
on every pound sterling invested. 

He was not a business-man. Eton and the army 
had spoiled him for that. But, beneath all his other, 
at times slightly erratic and unexpected characteristics, 
he had a great deal of plain, straight English common- 
sense, and he decided that if, as it seemed, he was go¬ 
ing to have a voice in the affairs of Tamerlanistan, he 
would think twice before he advocated the granting of 
any “concessions.” 

By this time Ayesha Zemzem had finished Her tale, 
had been petted and scolded and wept and laughed over 


lTHE mating of the blades 145 

By her mistress, and was now squatting in a corner of 
the pavilion, puffing noisily at a large, soothing hubble- 
bubble ; and the princess dismissed her servants, turned 
to Hector, and told him what had happened in Tamer- 
lanistan—what had sent the old nurse hurrying across 
desert and mountains. 

It appeared that Wahab al-Shaitan, the negro execu¬ 
tioner who, with the title of Rawan-i-Sultana, ‘‘Killer 
for the Queen,” was regent during her absence, had 
done well, comparatively speaking. He had ruled 
with an iron hand and, at first, everybody had obeyed 
him. 

Then, several weeks earlier, a spy had brought the 
news that Abderrahman Yahiah Khan, governor of 
the western marches, had again commenced intriguing 
with the Persian border ruffians whom he was sup¬ 
posed to keep in subjection. They were led by one 
Hajji Musa Al-Mutasim, a renegade Mecca Arab who 
had drifted east into Persia and was known, and un¬ 
favorably known, by the nickname of AUGhadir, “The 
Basin,” because of his enormous appetite and corre¬ 
sponding bulk, which latter did not prevent him, fol¬ 
lowed by his wild borderers, from being a genius at 
frontier warfare. He was here to-day and there to¬ 
morrow, dancing out of the bush, striking swiftly and 
mercilessly, and always at the very place where he was 
not supposed to be; and when the villagers could not 
pay the tribute which he demanded, he gave their huts 
to the flames and carried off their women and children 
and cattle. 

Too, he and his band were levying toll on the cara¬ 
vans that passed through the Darb-i~Sultani, “The 


146 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


King’s Highway,” on which Tamerlanistan depended 
for a great deal of its foreign trade; and now it ap¬ 
peared that the governor, instead of using his soldiers 
and police against the raiders, was sharing in their 
enterprise, including the profits. 

The regent had sent a summons to the governor 
to present himself immediately at the court of Tamer¬ 
lanistan. 

But Abderrahman Yahiah Khan, guessing, and 
rightly, that his arrival at court would be practically 
simultaneous with his beheading, had decided to* do 
nothing of the kind, and had instead sent an insulting 
message, which said: 

*‘I shall remain here and wax fat until thy mistress returns, 
O Wahab al-Shaitan. 

"Then I shall proceed to the capital in state, followed by my 
armed men, and shall claim Aziza Nurmahal as my bride. 

"For desire for her is in my nostrils. She is blooming and 
golden as the sun at dawn, with hair black as the midnight 
shades, with Paradise in her eyes, her bosom a white enchant¬ 
ment, her lips like the crimson asoka flower, and her lithe form 
swaying like the tamarisk when the soft wind blows sweetly, 
sweetly from the purple hills of Nijd. 

“Let her be ready for my coming, and instruct Ayesha 
Zemzem, that toothless old hag, to have the bridal robe of 
emerald green—as the mantle of the blessed Prophet Mohammed, 
on whom Peace 1 

"For green is my favorite color, and in this, as in all other 
matters, I brook no master except my will.” 

It was the calm insolence, the serene brutality of the 
message which brought Hector up standing. 

Not that he was the least bit in love with Aziza 
Nurmahal; for he loved Jane Warburton, and his in- 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 147 

stincts were decidedly not polygamous. But he was 
one of those men in whom the rising tide of woman^s 
demand for complete emancipation had not scotched 
that natural and decent impulse called chivalry—^and 
let us say, in parenthesis, that this same instinct, when 
used by the wrong type of man, makes for licentious¬ 
ness and domineering arrogance. 

“Desire is in his nostrils, is it?’^ he exclaimed, “and 
he wants the bridal robe to be of green? Well”— 
he fingered the hilt of the ancient blade—^“Tll see to 
it that thereUl be another desire in his nostrils pres¬ 
ently . . 

“And he shall also long for another color 1 ^’ shrilled 
the old nurse, coming out of her trance. “White! 
White! The calm white of the shroud when we stick 
his stinking corpse into an unhallowed grave! I like 
thee, A 1 Nakia 1 I like thee well. Son of the Swords 1 ” 
and she jumped up and gave Hector a noisy smacking 
kiss. 

The princess, too, was excited and happy. 

“Thou art master henceforth, A 1 Nakia!” she said. 
“Thy orders shall be carried out.” 

Hector inclined his head. Here at last was what 
he had been yearning for—a chance at actions and 
deeds. 

“Good!” he said. “We’ll start for Tamerlanistan 
at once.” 

And, half an hour later, with the princess’ servants 
forgetting for once their Oriental disregard of that 
vulgar western convention called Time, they w^re 
under way, after a short, vindictive, but decisi’^ 
wrangle with the hairy,’'goatish-smelling Pathan guides 


148 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


over rupees, annas, and pice, out of Peshawar, and up 
through the defile of the Khybar Pass where, on 
every hill-top, behind every rock and tree, squatted 
diminutive Goorkha soldiers in rifle green, guard¬ 
ing the bottle-like entrance of Britain’s eastern Do¬ 
minion. 

Afghanistan—the North—Central Asia! 

With every mile of the jagged road. Hector felt 
that this remote northern land was claiming him, wel¬ 
coming him, rising about him in a stony, enormous 
tide which was trying to wipe from his brain all 
memory of home, of England, of the rolling, yellow 
Sussex downs. 

Through the velvety gloom of the nights, through 
the crass white sunlight of the days, through the 
gaunt shadows of the volcanic hills which flanked the 
road and which danced, exuberantly, like hobgoblins 
among the dwarf aloes and pines and acacias, through 
the rhythmic click-clacketty-click of their Mawari stal¬ 
lions’ dainty feet, there sounded to him the clarion 
call of a greater, deeper, older duty, duty more com¬ 
pelling than the mere ‘‘chance” at a new life, a new 
career which he had longed for ever since that night 
when he had shouldered his first brother’s guilt and 
disgrace, when he had been kicked from the company 
of decent men as a card-cheat. 

His groping, subconscious mind seemed on the very 
threshold of one of those splendid moments when, 
suddenly, a great light flashes down the hidden, choked 
passages of the soul, and makes visible for a fleeting 
second the secret yearnings of past lives—lives dimly 
remembered. 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 149 

All this land—this far, northern land—was part of 
him. 

He felt it, knew it. 

And he was keyed up to a sort of grimly happy 
expectancy when Kabul jumped away from the coil¬ 
ing fogs of the hills, like a thick slab of opaque jade 
set into the frame of the sugarloaf-shaped mountains 
and incrusted here and there with rose pink and 
creamy yellow and crimson where the transplanted 
damask roses of Isfahan were making a brave fight 
against the chilly North. 

They did not linger at Kabul, though the servants 
clamored for the warmth, not to mention the gossip 
and opium, of the bazaars. 

Ishkashim was a shimmering maze of flat, white 
roofs; and they pulled into Balkh, silvery as lepers 
with the dust of the road, traded their horses for 
lean racing camels, which had a profusion of blue rib¬ 
bons plaited into their bridles as a protection against 
the djinns and ghouls of the desert, filled their saddle¬ 
bags with slabs of grayish, wheaten bread and little 
hard, golden apricots, and were off again, crossing the 
Great River at the shock of dawn, the princess at the 
head of the cavalcade, by Hector’s side. 

On! 

North—then West! 

Toward Tamerlanistan! 

And, in the dusty, whirling wake of their camels’ 
padded feet drifted whisper, gossip, babble, informa¬ 
tion; not as scientifically transmitted as the informa¬ 
tion which zums along the copper telegraph wires of 


150 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


the Occident, but quite as reliable and to the point. 

It started with a word of admiration in the servants’ 
hall of the Tamerlani merchant who had entertained 
Aziza Nurmahal in Peshawar: 

‘‘A most proper man is A 1 Nakia, the princess’ 
cousin. Strong and quick and courageous as the male 
elephant whose cheeks are streaked with passion. 
There is talk of trouble and mutiny in the western 
marches of Tamerlanistan, and A 1 Nakia has sworn 
a great oath on his blade that he will make the rebel 
governor eat seventy-seven times seventy-seven pecks 
of dirt! Such were his exact words!” 

That night, one of the merchant’s grooms repeated 
it to a nautch girl of his acquaintance in an opium 
shop near the Kashmere Gate, adding: 

“A 1 Nakia has been long away from his own coun¬ 
try. He has been in Belait —in Europe—and has be¬ 
come a Frank in everything, even as to his language. 
For I attended to his Rorse, and when he saw that the 
saddle girth had rubbed the stallion’s back raw, I 
heard him talk English under his breath. ‘Damn’ he 
said—^twice”—and he continued, with a certain 
haughty negligence—‘T also know the language of the 
saheb-log. ‘Damn—Hell—^jolly corkin’!’ I know a 
great deal.” 

All this the nautch girl retailed, an hour later, over 
a cup of brandy flavored with honey and rose water, 
to a Goorkha soldier who, the next morning, mounted 
guard in the Khybar Pass and told it to a friend of 
his, a rough Mahmoud tribesman with oily locks and 
a hawkish, predatory face. 

Jhus the tale took wings, spanning streams and 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 151 

forests, vaulting crumbling basalt ridges and twisted 
mountain peaks, until, finally overtaking the princess* 
cavalcade and traveling well ahead of it, it reached 
the ear of Babu Bansi who, just then, was on the point 
of leaving Tamerlanistan and going to Bokhara to 
meet his eccentric employer, Mr. Preserved Higgins. 

Bansi winked a large wink at nothing in particular. 

‘‘Al Nakia’*—he said—The Expected Says 
‘Damn!* Is strong and quick and courageous! By 
Kartikeya Chaurya-Vidya, God of the Golden Spears I 
But this is jolly rippin* interesting!** 

Whereupon he sent a cabalistic telegram to a 
mysterious address in Bokhara—a telegram which was 
opened by a Cockney millionaire who turned to the 
young, nervous Englishman with him with the words: 
‘There*s a whole lot o* blinkin* trouble in the wind; 
we got to go South straight orf !’*; a telegram which 
caused the local manager of the Cable Company a 
fruitless and head-splitting searching through half-a- 
dozen cable code books—and told his body servant 
that he had changed his mind. 

He was not going North, to Bokhara, but West, 
toward the Persian border. 

“But, Babu-jee!** expostulated the servant, “the 
raiders are out in force, cutting purses—also throats; 
and the governor of the western marches is said to be 
in league with them, and . . .** 

“Peace, O son of loathly begetting!** purred Bansi. 
“I was not bom yesterday. I can hear the grass grow 
and the fleas cough !** 

And he mounted his horse and, followed by the 
trembling servant, was off at a spanking pace and, 


152 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 

several days later, after many changes of horse, his 
fat body perspiring profusely, his eyes swollen and 
red with the dust of the road, but his brain as chillily 
cunning as ever, he pulled up at the headquarters 
of the governor of the western marches, who received 
him like a long-lost brother, just about the time that 
the princess and her party were drawing within sight 
of the capital of Tamerlanistan. 

They had been riding hard; for, three times dur¬ 
ing the last days of the journey, messengers had come 
to them, sent ly the executioner-regent, with words 
that the situation was growing worse, that even the 
capital was seething, with subterranean rumors of re¬ 
bellion. He had takejn the precaution of putting 
Koom Khan and Gulabia%in jail, besides cutting off 
a number of less important heads. His staunchest 
support was Nedjif Hassan Khan, the governor of 
the eastern marches, doubtless for the simple reason 
that the governor of the western marches was his 
twin brother and worst enemy. 

But there was danger. Let the princess hurry. 

And they had hurried. 

Hector’s camel was ready to give up. Her head 
was bowed on her heaving, lathering chest, and she 
breathed with a deep, rattling noise. But he bent 
over her neck, lifting her with every stride, and keep¬ 
ing her nose straight to the road. 

Then, late one afternoon, the princess reined in and 
pointed. 

‘Tamerlanistan!” she said. 

And they rode on again, while the camels grunted 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 153 

and squealed, and while the dark mass that loomed up 
on the horizon was becoming more and more distinct 
with every minute, presently splitting into streets and 
houses; and a pleasant city it was beneath.the rays of 
the dying sun; with carved, massive mosques and low, 
flat-roofed houses buried in flaunting gardens; with 
tall, keen-domed palaces, flushing scarlet and gold, 
gigantic water reservoirs, time-riven arches spanning 
crooked streets, square towers incrusted in high relief 
with figures of beast and man, and high above it 
all, descending in an avalanche of bold masonry, 
like a vision in a dream, the great palace of the 
Gengizkhani . . . 

A noisy town. For, in the East, every one talks, 
and talks in extremes, either in a gloomy whisper or 
in a raucous scream, with the very voices of horse and 
camel and donkey seeming to be pitched in a soprano 
key; and high above the hubbub, just as the cavalcade 
passed through the East Gate, rose the melodious voice 
of a muezzin chanting the call to prayer from a 
minaret: 

‘'Hie ye to devotion, O all ye faithful! Hie ye to 
salvation! God is most great!’'—and the immediate, 
answering mutter, from balcony and shop, from coffee 
house and from the gutter itself: 

"Here I am at Thy call, O Allah! Here I am at 
Thy call!” 

"Here I am at Thy call!” echoed Aziza Nurmahal, 
softly, while Hector stared straight ahead. 

"Tamerlanistan! The palace of the Gengizkhani!” 
he whispered, with an odd little catch in his throat; 


154 iTHE mating OF THE BLADES 


and something like a shudder passed through him, 
something that touched the fringe of a forgotten 
mystery, ancient, magnificent, transcendent. 

He had reined in his mount with his left hand 
while, instinctively, as if searching for encourage¬ 
ment, his right felt for the hilt of the blade—the blade 
that was responsible for all this twisted, mad adventure. 

Then he shook off the dim, whirling thoughts. He 
spurred the camel's lean flanks. 

On! By the side of Aziza Nurmahal who was 
smilingly returning the throaty salutations of the 
Tamerlanis who came running down the streets, out 
of houses and mosques and bazaars, to meet her: 
tradesmen and peasants and artisans; too, sabre-rat¬ 
tling, hook-nosed, swaggering nobles. And Hector 
noticed that many of the latter gave churlish greetings, 
and that some of them even stalked past, straight 
backed, insolently looking the other way, without a 
sign of recognition for their sovereign princess. 

They continued their way through the main road 
of the city, and up a steep, stone-paved ascent that led 
to the chowk, the outer courtyard of the palace. 

There they dismounted and walked, past files of 
soldiers and servants and courtiers, through a huge 
gate studded with brass spikes, through another court¬ 
yard crammed with human life, and into still another 
which was lifeless except for the whir and coo of 
hundreds of blue-winged pigeons. 

The Princess drew a foot-long, skewer-li!:e key 
from her waist shawl, opened the door, and motioned 
Hector to enter. 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 155 


‘‘Homeshe said, softly. 

And, in the flash of an eyelid, the impression, rather 
the profound conviction, came to Hector that this 
strange, fantastic city was his Home indeed—^his 
Home, every bit as much as the crumbling old Tudor 
Castle beyond the seas in smiling Sussex. 

And he passed through the door, like a man sure of 
Ws way. 


CHAPTER XII 


In which it is proved that Eton, Oxford, and the Army 
are not necessarily fatal to success in life. 

*'Hansua ke hiyah, khtirpa ke git!” remarked 
Wahab al-Shaitan, the chief executioner, to Mahsud 
Hakki, the head eunuch, meaning by the gliding, purr¬ 
ing words that it was ‘'the wedding of the sickle, but 
that all the song was for the hoe’^—an extravagant 
Oriental simile immediately understood by the other, 
who untucked his fat legs from beneath his fat 
haunches, rose, and stretched himself. 

“Yes,” he said. “It is A 1 Nakia who rules. It is 
A 1 Nakia who gives forth pearls of wisdom and jus¬ 
tice and shining equity, judiciously tempered by the 
swish of the sword when it is red. It ^s A 1 Nakia 
whose eyes fatten the cattle and frighten the wolves. 
Yet is it Aziza Nurmahal whose praise is babbled in 
bazaar and mosque and mart. A 1 Nakia wants noth¬ 
ing except—he told me so himself when I asked him— 
the personal satisfaction of knowing that he is doing 
a measure of good, that he is achieving a measure of 
success. He said so—by Allah!” 

A great, naive wonder overspread Wahab al- 
Shaitan’s plum-colored features. 

“Last night,” he said, a little hesitatingly, like a 
man who does not expect to be believed, “the princess 
156 


[THE MATING OF THE BLADES 157 

offered to raise him to the rank and title of Itizad eU 
Dowleh, ‘Grandeur of the State/ since it is evident 
that Hajji Akhbar Khan will never return from the 
far places. But A 1 Nakia refused. He wants no 
higher title than his present one: Sadr Azem, ‘Prime 
Minister.’ Strange, isn’t it?” 

“Strange indeed. He is the government. He con¬ 
trols the finances, the palace household, and the army. 
He works like a beaver and sleeps like a hare. He is 
a deer in running, a tiger in pouncing, a hawk in 
clutching. And he does not intrigue for the throne. 
He does not ask the princess’ hand in marriage. He 
does not even want money or fame. Strange—as 
strange as the ancient prophecy of the swords 1” 

And Mahsud Hakki shook his kinky poll. 

Yet, had the two Nubians known or, knowing, been 
able to understand, the strangest aspect of the whole 
affair was less the actuality of Hector’s success as de^ 
facto ruler of Tamerlanistan than the contrast of this 
success with his, of course hypothetical, failure had 
Fate thrown him to a different corner of the earth. 

For, had he taken his father’s quite well-meant sug¬ 
gestion and gone to Canada or South Africa, he 
would by this time have become a remittance man, in¬ 
cluding all that the term implies—he would have been 
crushed beneath the wheels of that juggernaut like so 
many other of Britain’s younger sons who leave home 
“for a reason.” 

But it is a racial, almost a historical, phenomenon 
that these same younger sons who go under in the 
far places colonized by their own countrymen, make 


158 THE MATING OF JHE BLADES 

often supremely good when circumstance forces them 
to live and work amongst either inferior peoples, as in 
Africa, or a people of a different civilization and cul¬ 
ture, as in Asia. 

Perhaps it is because they feel that, amongst foreign 
races, it is up to them to uphold the traditions o/ their 
own country; perhaps there is at the back of it some 
scientific or quasi-scientific reason not yet discovered, 
dissected, and codified ad absurdum by those en¬ 
thusiastically illogical and intolerant atheists who call 
themselves biologists. 

But the fact of it remains; and Hector Wade was 
a living example. 

Quite untrammeled by the clogging traditions of 
Tamerlanistan’s past, yet careful not to rough-ride 
over any of those customs and prejudices which, in the 
swing of the centuries, had become endowed with an 
almost religious sanction, he gripped the helm of the 
ship of state and proceeded to navigate it amongst the 
swirls and shoals and eddies of the turbulent political 
waters. 

Soberly English, he began with the department of 
the treasury. English, too, in his willingness to 
compromise instead of dragooning, he retransferred the 
treasury to the capable hands of Gulabian, whom he 
released from prison. English, finally, in his con¬ 
structive though rather cynical belief that the best pre¬ 
ventive against corruption is money, he raised the 
Armenian's salary to such a high figure that it would 
not have paid him to accept bribes. The result was 
as he had expected: Gulabian became a faithful sup- 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 159 

porter of the new administration. Within a few 
weeks, the taxes were again commencing to flow in; 
not, of course, with the methodical regularity as dur¬ 
ing the life-time of the old Ameer and the stewardship 
of Hajji Akhbar Khan, but sufflciently smoothly to 
keep the country out of bankruptcy; and in this, as in 
the other administrative departments, it was the 
primitive simplicity of Tamerlanistan which permitted 
Hector to accomplish in a few weeks what, in a more 
hectic, a more highly organized, a more complicated 
European country, would have taken him as many 
months or years. 

Next he turned his attention to the household, the 
palace. Many of the customs there went against his 
grain. But he said to himself that the Orient is the 
Orient, and that the harem, the intimacy of the house 
and family, is absolutely inviolable. Nor did he fancy 
himself in the role of a reformer. He was tolerant 
enough to admit that that which is right in London 
may well be wrong in Pekin, and vice versa, and so 
he attempted no changes in the household, with the 
single exception that he did away with the multitude 
of spies, telling tales about each other. Otherwise he 
left the intimate palace affairs in the hands of the old 
nurse. 

When it came to the reform of the army, he not 
only used the military lessons he had learned in the 
Dragoons and at war college, but also the sober 
psychological wisdom—though he himself referred to 
it as horse sense—he had acquired through his human 
relations with the troopers in his half-squadron. 

He remembered chiefly the case, including the 


i6o THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


morals of the case, of one Bill Dockeray, a Liverpool 
wharfinger who had donned the blue and silver of the 
Dragoons in a moment of patriotism not altogether 
untainted by three fingers of gin which a pal had put 
in his fifteenth glass of beer—to regret his martial de¬ 
cision promptly and profanely as soon as he had dis¬ 
covered that the King’s Shilling, a gay tunic, and the 
regimental band tuning up ‘"The Dashing White 
Sergeant” were not all there was to life in barracks; 
that there was, also, drill and route marching and 
sobriety —and discipline. 

Bill Dockeray had decided that he was a “free-born 
bloody Englishman,” had emphasized this assertion by 
flattening out a lance-jack’s aquiline nose, and had been 
sent to “clink” for three days. 

Which had not chastened him in the least. 

On the contrary, he had grown steadily worse, un¬ 
til the colonel had become bored with the monotonous, 
almost weekly: 

“Private William Dockeray, C Squadron, two days 
for insubordination!” and, after a particularly mu¬ 
tinous outbreak had threatened him with brigade 
court-martial. 

It was then that Hector Wade had interfered. 

“Let me have a talk with Bill Dockeray,” he had 
asked the colonel. 

The latter had shaken his head. 

“You’ll never make a soldier out of him,” he had 
said. 

“It won’t do any harm to try, sir/^ 

“All right. Please yourself.” 


[THE MATING OF THE BLADES i6i 


And Hector had gone to the guard-house and inter¬ 
viewed the lawless trooper. 

‘'Look here,” he had said, “you’ll get jolly well 
kicked out of the service in disgrace.” 

“A fat bloomin’ lot I’d care,” had come the sneer¬ 
ing reply. 

“But you will also get two years’ hard labor,” Hec¬ 
tor had continued—which put a different complexion 
altogether on the matter and made the argument much 
more persuasive. 

“You’re in for it,” he had said, “either jail—or you 
behave yourself and stay with the colors. Why, man, 
the army isn’t so bad. Of course you have to do what 
you are told. So have 1 . So has the colonel. So 
has everybody.” 

“I ’ytes the army,” Bill Dockeray had insisted, stub¬ 
bornly, aggressively. 

“Take some interest in your work,” Hector had re¬ 
plied. “Make the best of it. Why, there must be 
something about the service that you like. Let’s see 
if we can find it between us.” 

And, after fifteen minutes’ careful and tactful ques¬ 
tioning, he had discovered that the lawless recruit 
took quite a little interest in farriery, his father hav¬ 
ing been a veterinary in the Midlands—with the ulti¬ 
mate result, that, half a year later, Private Bill 
Dockeray had become Farrier Sergeant William 
Dockeray, had been heard to speak about the honor of 
the “bloomin’ old rag,” meaning the Union Jack, with 
a great deal of proprietary pride, and had severely 
manhandled one Bert Simmonds, trooper, for having 


162 ,THE MATING OF JHE BLADES 

said in canteen that all “them orFcers are lousy, 
deedin’, cocky swine.” 

Now Hector used practically the identical tactics 
with regard to Koom Khan, the ex-commander-in¬ 
chief, whom Wahab al-Shaitan had put in jail during 
his term of office. 

He visited him there and found him in decidedly 
bad humor. But he said to himself that this man who 
glared at him out of hasheesh reddened eyes without 
a word in answer to his courtly greeting, was an 
Oriental and, by the same token, a man hard to man¬ 
age yet easy to inspire; a man, moreover, who pre¬ 
ferred a certain subtle brutality to all the logic in the 
world and believed profoundly that casuistry was the 
final essence of ratiocination. 

Wherefore he studied him as he might an exotic 
and nauseating beetle, not sure whether he should 
crush it under foot or simply ignore its existence, and 
said, ironically, with pauses between the words: 

“Koom Khan, thou and I must either be friends— 
or enemies.” 

The other blinked his swollen eyelids and waved a 
negligent hand. 

“Very well,” He replied. “Let us be enemies, A 1 
Nakia.” 

“Agreed.” Hector rose and walked to the door. 
There he turned and added, quite gently, “But we shall 
not be enemies for long.” 

“For as long as there is breath in my body!” burst 
put Koom Khan. 

“That is just what I meant when I said that it 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 163 

would not be for long. For—I have never trusted 
a living enemy—and I have never feared a dead 
one!” 

Koom Khan gave a slight start, but controlled him¬ 
self almost immediately, and said, with the utmost, 
arrogant nonchalance: 

‘^Death is not such a savory mouthful that one 
should gulp it down whole. I have changed my mind, 
my lord. I shall hereafter be thy friend.^' 

And then, with a disconcertingly sudden swing to 
deep seriousness, he went on: 

^‘Al Nakia! Fools—such fools as I—^lose their way 
amongst the pitfalls of ambition. The pathway that 
is straight and clear is hidden to fools—such fools as 
I—by the mud of our greed, by the tangled under¬ 
growth of our wayfaring desires. A handful of dust 
blinded my eyes to the signal whose meaning I know 
well.’’ 

'What signal?” asked Hector, rather embarrassed, 
and quite at a loss what to make of the other’s almost 
tragic earnestness of gesture and expression. 

"The prophecy, my lord! I set the flame of my 
sinful, foolish, greedy ambition against the words of 
the ancient prophecy! I forgot that thou, my lord, 
art the 'Expected One,’ that thou earnest out of the 
West, the blade in thy hand—^the blade that will mate 
with the other blade, whenever the time is propitious 
and Allah gives the word!” • 

And Hector suppressed an impatient exclamation 
as, nearly automatically, he drew the sword from his 
waist shawl and tended it, hilt foremost, for Koom 
Khan to touch with his lips and swear fealty on, as 


i 54 fTHE MATING OF THE BLADES 

Tagi Khan had done that morning, and the Sheik-ul- 
Islam the day before. 

all the confounded, mystifying darned poppy¬ 
cock—ril be jolly well blowed!” he said to himself, 
in plain, colloquial English, as he returned to his 
quarters in the left wing of the palace. 

For in almost every instance when Hector, since 
he had begun to take charge of the affairs of Tamer- 
lanistan, combining flattery and unvarnished brutality, 
brought the leaders and sub-leaders and henchmen of 
the different warring factions into line with his ad¬ 
ministrative policy, sooner or later the blades and the 
ancient prophecy were referred to, as the final argu¬ 
ment. 

And Hector was prey to natural curiosity. He 
wanted to know what it was all about. 

But he did not dare. 

At first his congenital stubbornness and, too, a cer¬ 
tain fatalistic resolve to accept this new life of his 
and all it might bring without question or doubt or 
mental reservations, had sealed his lips. Now the 
very fact that he had accepted all without asking, that 
thus he had admitted indirectly that he was familiar 
with the prophecy and its meaning, made it impossible 
for him to demand an explanation. 

What puzzled him most was that reference was al¬ 
ways made to two blades. 

He might have understood had they spoken of only 
one, the one he had found in the old lumber room 
near Dealle Castle; might have figured out that 
originally it had belonged to one of the Gengizkhani 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 165 

family and that his bringing it here, back to Tamer- 
lanistan, was considered a good omen by these super¬ 
stitious people. 

But—what was the other blade ? 

Too, who was this mad old Oriental in Coal Yard 
Street, near Drury Lane, who had lent him money on 
the sword and had sent him, indirectly, with that 
cryptic note to the house in the Colootallah where he 
had seen the princess? 

Was he perhaps Hajji Akhbar Khan, the dead 
Ameer’s prime minister, the Itizad el-Dowleh, of whom 
he heard whispers now and then, and who, shortly 
before his master’s death, had gone to Europe on 
some secret mission? 

And what then was the answer to it all? 

How did this puzzle picture of twisted, painted, 
crazy Asian life dovetail into a whole? 

For it did dovetail—to everybody’s satisfaction, ex¬ 
cept his own. The very gipsies and donkey boys and 
beggars and dervishes seemed to accept it. 

He would have asked Aziza Nurmahal. He trusted 
her implicitly, and liked her just as he would have 
liked some wholesome English ^‘county” girl whose 
interests were entirely taken up with bringing baskets 
to the aged and ailing villagers, playing croquet on 
the curate’s lawn, and going for a run with the harrier 
hounds, in short skirts and puttees. 

Even if he had not been in love with Jane War- 
burton, Aziza Nurmahal would have had no sex ap¬ 
peal, no emotional message, for him. 

He simply liked her. Liked her tremendously, and 
he would have asked her, as he might a pah 


i66 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


‘T say, tell me what all this drivel about swords and 
prophecies signifies—there’s a dear!” 

But the freedom and comradeship of the open road 
had ceased the moment she had set foot in the palace 
of the Gengizkhani, and once more she had become 
the Oriental princess, hedged in by ancient customs, 
submitting to the traditions of purdah and harem, of 
veil and woman’s seclusion, putting aside the former 
only when she was surrounded by her servants and 
eunuchs, and never seeing him without palace officials 
and courtiers hovering about —and listening. 

Thus Hector had never an opportunity of asking 
her, and found himself in the awkward and, from his 
straight-grained English point of view distasteful, 
predicament of forever playing a role, forever, silently, 
indirectly, admitting that he was perfectly familiar 
with a mystery of which in reality he hardly under¬ 
stood the outer fringes. 

Tamerlanistan accepted him and though, naturally, 
amongst the older generation there were many who 
grumbled a little, who criticized, who compared him, 
of course unfavorably, with Hajji Akhbar Khan, 
Itizad el-Dowleh, the younger men praised the superior 
wisdom of the new prime minister, A 1 Nakia, the 
Sadr Azem. 

He was not one of those cocksure Europeans and 
Americans who, delegated by circumstance to rule 
over Asiatics, decide immediately that all their tradi¬ 
tions and customs are wrong and must therefore be 
promptly changed. 

He knew that the thing which the Oriental dislikes 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 167 

most in the European system is its dawdling, minute 
sloth in the, manner of meting out justice. The 
Oriental holds that, when he is wronged, it is the 
business of the ruler or his executive delegate to right 
him at once, without delay, without expense, without 
wearying process of law, fully and finally. He ap¬ 
peals to his ruler loudly in the market-place, the 
mosque, or the hall of audience, expects that justice 
be dealt out then and there, that the decision may be 
inexorably, cruelly just, but must be reached irrespec¬ 
tive of rules of evidence, precedent, customs or laws 
other than religious ones—and that all judgments 
must be made instantly executive and must under no 
conditions be subject to appeal. 

So, as the princess' delegate. Hector held open 
court in front of the palace every morning, with Koom 
Khan and Gulabian as his advisers and often, when it 
came to settling domestic squabbles between husband 
and wife or master and servant, the old nurse con¬ 
tributing valuable, frequently profane, and always 
ruthlessly constructive counsel; and, in consequence, 
he was busy all day and half the night. 

But he liked it. He forgot himself, his past work, 
his past disgrace and bitterness, in this work, and in 
the clean satisfaction of achieving which resulted 
from it. 

The yellow wold of Sussex was forgotten. 

All was forgotten except Jane Warburton. 

In regard to the pacification and subjugation of the 
western marches, he progressed with the utmost slow¬ 
ness and caution, very much to the disappointment of 


168 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


Koom Khan and Gulabian, the former advocating 
swift action for military, the latter for financial 
reasons. 

Abderrahman Yahiah Khan, the governor, had not 
fulfilled his braggart threat, had not advanced to the 
capital at the head of his armed men to claim the hand 
of Aziza Nurmahal in marriage. On the other hand, 
he had declared his absolute independence, was now 
openly the ally of Hajji Musa Al-Mutasim, surnamed 
Al-Ghadir, ^The Basin,^’ the leader of the Persian 
border ruffians, and was levying ever-increasing toll 
on the caravans that went up the Darh-i-Sultani, “The 
King’s Highway,” with the argricultural produce of 
Tamerlanistan, to ‘return with the wares of Persia, 
Bokhara, Khiva, and the Caucasus. 

When the Sheik-ul-Islam, on a spiritual journey to 
Isfahan, was held up by the robbers and deprived of 
his sacerdotal green silk robe, his purse, and his rosary 
of flawless emeralds, with the ironically courtly words: 
“Take off that robe, O Certain Person, and remove 
the rosary. Also turn over thy purse. All three are 
wanted by the daughter of my maternal uncle!”; 
when, threatening the robbers with excommunication 
and similar dire theological consequences, he was 
answered with the insolent pun that religion was all 
very well for the Ahl Hayt, the Dwellers of Towns, 
but had no effect on the Ahl Bayt, the Dwellers of the 
Black Tents; when, on his return to the capital, he 
poured out the tale of his grievance and demanded that 
a punitive expedition be sent immediately to the west¬ 
ern marches. Hector cut the lamentations short by 


iTHE MATING OF THE BLADES 169 

saying that he himself was the siper salar, the captain 
general, and that the interference of the church in 
matters military was his pet dislike. 

‘‘But, A 1 Nakia,’’ protested the Sheik-ul-Islam, “be 
pleased to consider my losses.'^ 

“A new robe of state shall be given thee, also some 
money, and a rosary ...” 

“Of emeralds—like the one I lost?” came the quick, 
greedy query. 

“No. God hears prayers even though they be 
clicked on simple wooden beads.” 

“But my loss of ^dignity, my lord! My loss of 
prestige!” 

Hector smiled sardonically. From the very first, 
he had felt an antipathy for the suave, hypocritical 
priest. 

“Worldly thoughts for a holy man,” he suggested; 
and when the other again spoke about his loss of 
dignity and, with a general appeal to the courtiers 
who crowded the hall of audience, repeated his de¬ 
mand that an expedition be sent to punish Abderrah- 
man Yahiah Khan, Hector bur^t forth with a thunder¬ 
ous “Silence! I follow my own counsel, even though 
the robbers cut off the nose of the Commander of the 
Faithful himself.” 

The Sheik-ul-Islam rose and walked away, angry, 
mortified, throwing over his shoulder the Parthian 
shot that A 1 Nakia was setting up to be a warrior, a 
fighter, a swashbuckler, a leader of men, but that 
“the more we approach the enemy, the more the tiger 
in our heart becomes a lamb I” 


170 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


“Thou hast made an enemy of the priest,’^ said . 
Koom Khan to Hector, that night, as the two, in 'j 
the company of the Armenian treasurer, were smok- \ 
ing peaceful hubble-bubbles on the balcony of the pal- | 
ace, looking out into the spring night where fire star- ' 
light drifted through budding boughs into budding 
earth. • 

Hector made a negligent gesture, while the other 
continued that, too, there was some truth in what the 
Sheik had said: 

“The army is ready, is eager to fight. Let us 
strike, A 1 Nakia.” 

And Gulabian, though an Armenian and thus, con- ’ 
genitally, a man of peace, agreed to it and advocated 
a quick, smashing attack on the governor of the west¬ 
ern marches. He went on to say that, through the 
good offices of spies and also of the local agent of the 
Cable Company, the Babu Chandra, who had inter¬ 
cepted and deciphered several cable messages sent from 
India, via Tamerlanistan, to Isfahan, and thence to 
the headquarters of the rebel chief, he had found out 
that the latter was preparing a great military coup, 
for which he had not only the support of the rene¬ 
gade Arab, Musa Al-Mutasim, but also of certain 
Europeans who seemed to have enough influence with 
the British-Indian government to have been granted 
a permit to ship rifles and ammunition in large quan¬ 
tities through the Persian Gulf. 

“England takes no interest in the affairs of Tamer¬ 
lanistan,” continued Hector. “It is outside their 
sphere of interests.” 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 171 

“Yet the fact remains. The rifles are being 
shipped.” 

“But who are the Europeans with Abderrahman 
Yahiah Khan? And what have they to do with this 
land?” 

“Everything. For remember, there is the old ques¬ 
tion of the ‘concessions,' and one of the Europeans—* 
his name is Mr. Preserved Higgins . . .” 

Hector sat up straight. “Preserved Higgins ?” 

He thought, puzzled. Why, he said to himself as 
he had done once before, it was this same Cockney 
millionaire who had been the first to mention the name 
of Tamerlanistan to him, who had wanted him to go 
there, who had spoken of the princess, of Aziza Nur- 
mahal, and . . . 

“My lord,” Gulabian's terse, low voice cut through 
his thoughts, “Mr. Preserved Higgins is a careful 
man. He holds to the ancient maxim that among the 
sages, Narudu; among the beasts, the jackal; among 
the birds, the crow; among men, the barber; and 
among wise men, he who thinks twice—is the most 
crafty. Thinks twice! Acts twice! Thus he is also 
shipping rifles and ammunition from Bokhara and 
Khiva and Russian Turkestan, in case an enemy whis¬ 
per a word into the ears of the British-Indian Raj. 
Too, there is the other European whom he brought 
with him, and my spies tell me that he is a soldier 
like thyself, trained in the art of war, quick and ener¬ 
getic and courageous. Nor is that all. For—thou 
knowest the old prophecy—of the sword and the woq- 
ing of the swords . . . ?” 


172 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


'"Yes. Of course/^ said Hector, blushing slightly 
for the white lie. “What about it?’’ 

“The governor of the western marches is spreading 
the news that thou art not the man meant in the 
prophecy, that thou art an impostor, that the other, 
the Englishman whom Mr. Preserved Higgins brought 
with him, is the real A 1 Nakia, the real ‘Expected 
One,’ and . . 

“Then Mr. Preserved Higgins knows of the proph¬ 
ecy?” sharply demanded Hector. 

“Yes. He knows, it through his agent, the Babu 
Bansi.” 

Hector was about to accept the explanation, when, 
suddenly, looking up and seeing the expression of 
sardonic amusement that flitted over Koom Khan’s 
vulpine features, he remembered that this was Tamer- 
lanistan, the heart of the Moslem Orient, and that the 
Moslems, as a religious body, have that strange char¬ 
acteristic which the Chinese have racially; namely, an 
unwritten, uncodified, but absolutely- compelling free¬ 
masonry which makes it possible that a secret known 
to all the Moslems of the community, from the highest 
dignitary of the mosque olema to the lowest, ragged- 
est donkey boy, from the head of the Rakaiz Al-Utah, 
the “Merchants’ Guild,” to a recently and forcefully 
converted plum-colored Nubian slave, that a secret 
which is whispered in the coffee-houses, the opium 
shops, the palace yards, the camel markets, the cara¬ 
vanserais, and behind the flopping curtains of the 
harem, remains a sealed book to the non-Moslem mem¬ 
bers of the community. He knew that it was this 
peculiar characteristic which, next to the centripetal 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 173 

influence of the yearly pilgrimage to Mecca and 
Madina, is the power which holds Islam together and 
which, in spite of the many races which compose it, 
makes of Islam a fighting, thinking, to-be-reckoned- 
with whole. 

The only exception to this freemasonic rule of 
secrecy is made in the case of a non-Moslem whose 
advice and help is absolutely essential and who has be¬ 
come an integral part of the community, and that was 
why Gulabian^ though an Armenian and a Christian, 
but a member of the intimate palace household and of 
the late Ameer’s cabinet, would have heard about the 
prophecy of the blades. 

But Babu Bansi was a Hindu, an infidel—and an 
outsider, working for outside interests. 

How then had the man found out? 

And Hector voiced the question. 

''How did Bansi find out?” he demanded. 

Thus interrogated, the Armenian seemed horribly 
startled and confused, while Koom Khan broke into 
raucous, disagreeable laughter—laughter presently 
echoed in a cracked falsetto from the room in back 
of the balcony whence Ayesha Zemzem, the old nurse, 
stepped out with a clanking of brass anklets and a low, 
ironic salaam to Gulabian, who was momentarily be¬ 
coming more unhappy. 

"A 1 Nakia,” she said, "there are three things the 
effects of which upon himself no man can foretell— 
namely, desire of woman, the dice box, and the drink¬ 
ing of ardent spirits—” 

"And,” gently cooed Koom Khan, with a glance at 


174 the mating of THE BLADES 

the uneasy Armenian, ‘'our Gulabian likes not the dice 
box, being a man faithfully mated to his swollen purse, 
and sacrificing daily to the swag-bellied god of com¬ 
pound interest. Nor does he care for ardent spirits, 
being in that respect—and in that respect only!—like 
a True Believer. But— ahee !—the desire of woman 
smells sweetly, pungently, intoxicatingly in his 
nostrils !’^ 

"Indeed!” the old nurse took up the tale. "The 
desire of woman! Our Gulabian knows not the truth 
of the saying that the* beauty of the nightingale is its 
song, science the beauty of an ugly man, forgiveness 
the beauty of a devotee, and the beauty of a decent 
man steadfastness in love. Shameless dancing girls 
from the stinking, yellow Southland—bold-eyed, red- 
haired hussies from Georgia and the Caucasus—raven- 
locked maidens from Bokhara—in a never-ending pro¬ 
cession, they dance across the heart of our Gulabian. 
They sweep with perfumed fingers the impetuous 
harp strings of his soul. And,” she went on merci¬ 
lessly, while the Armenian stammered and blushed, 
while Koom Khan guffawed crudely, and even Hector, 
for all his preoccupation, joined in the merriment, 
"there was talk, at the time of the Ameer’s death, 
of one Jayashri, a golden-skinned beauty from far 
Bengal. 'Sister,’ the Babu Bansi called her—but a 
naughty sister she was, finding but little joy in sisterly 
devotion, in minding her fat and indecent brother’s 
household pots, but instead whispering words of 
sweetness and love and soft passion into the ear of 
our . . .” 

"Peace, Leaky-Tongue!” cut in the Armenian, thor- 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 175 


oughly exasperated. ‘Teace, Parrot-Face! I admit 
it. Jayashri’s beauty was overpowering—as the 
moon’s on the fourteenth day. Her little, white feet 
were lisping twin flowers, her little nose was . . 

‘‘Spare us the enumeration of her physical perfec¬ 
tions,” laughed Hector. Then, seriously: “Thou 
didst tell her?” 

“Yes. A word or two about the prophecy of the 
blades. She said that true love means utter trust, 
utter confidence, and so just a word or two I told her, 
my lord!” 

“But sufficient to give a clue to her—brother, the 
Babu!” 

“Enough, too,” croaked the old nurse, “to throw 
this land into turmoil, to cause the Babu Bansi to send 
messages along the devil wires to Belait —to Europe— 
and then to smash the devil machinery, so that the 
other son of a noseless mother, the Babu Chandra, 
stalks into the presence of Aziza Nurmahal and speaks 
words bloated with arrogsgice! Yes! Thou didst 
tell her enough, O Armenian, to plant the seeds of 
rebellion in this land—” 

And she gave a terse and vituperative history of the 
events that had disturbed the peace of Tamerlanistan, 
just about the time of the memorable card game at 
Dealle Castle when Hector had lived up to the tradi¬ 
tions of the Wade family and had shouldered the 
guilt of his elder brother . . . the memory came to 
him now, and with it a slight bitterness, too, a slight 
elation. 

For, after all, he said to himself, if it had not 
been for the card scandal, for the Wade traditions, he 


176 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 

would still be in England, living an entirely honorable 
and entirely innocuous life as a subaltern of Dragoons, 
while here he was standing on his own feet—inde¬ 
pendent—and . . . 

He shut off his rambling thoughts and turned to 
Ayesha Zemzem who was still emptying the vials of 
her abuse on the head of Gulabian, to the accom¬ 
paniment of Koom Khan’s rumbling laughter. 

‘^Enough!” Hector raised an impatient hand. 
“The harm is done. Mr. Preserved Higgins knows 
of the prophecy, knows enough of it at least to 
turn it to his advantage, and he will doubtless try 
and force our hands in the matter of the 'conces¬ 
sions.’ All right. We’ll make the best of a bad bar¬ 
gain.” 

“A very bad bargain,” commented Koom Khan, 
with a sidelong glance at the treasurer. 

The latter smiled. 

“Fight poison with poison,” he suggested. “The 
Babu Chandra, too, represents European interests. 
If thou, O A 1 Nakia, sayest the word . . .” 

“I know. If I say the word, the sahebs who em¬ 
ploy the Babu Chandra will some to my support with 
money and rifles and ammunition—but they, too, will 
demand 'concessions.’ No—-there is no choice be¬ 
tween the Devil and Satan. No 'concessions’ shall 
be granted until we—the princess and I—have thor¬ 
oughly considered the matter from every angle. I 
do not trust the sahebs.” 

“And thou a saheb thyself!” softly said the 
Armenian. 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 177 

‘Thus so much better able to judge the strength— 
and the weaknesses of the saheb-logT' 

“But remember!’' argued Koom Khan. “Abder- 
rahman Yahiah Khan is spreading the tale that thou 
art an impostor—^that the Englishpian whom Higgins 
saheb has brought is the true ‘Expected One I’ ” 

Again Hector played up to his role, which by this 
time had become second nature to him. He drew 
the ancient sword from its sheath with a dramatic 
flourish. 

“Here is the proof that I am the ‘Expected One I’ ” 
he said. 

“Proof enough for us,’' rejoined Koom Khan. 
“But—thou knowest how it is. The masses, the peo¬ 
ple, are like sheep. If the governor of the western 
marches, with the help of Higgins saheb’s money bags 
and the unknown saheb’s war prowess, should make 
a sudden descent upon us and snatch victory out of 
our fingers, then, before we shall be able to rally for 
a counter-stroke, the masses will swing to him. 
They will say that, blade or no blade, thou art an 
impostor. And then”—he shrugged his massive 
shoulders—“I love thee well, my lord—I would not 
care to see the little, little jackals gorge themselves on 
thy bleeding, headless trunk—” 

“Nor shalt thou see it,” replied Hector. “I tell thee 
I have considered everything. When I fight Abller- 
rahman Yahiah Khan, I shall fight him on ground of 
my own choosing, and not on ground of his choos¬ 
ing —and he whispered certain instructions to Koom 
Khan, which sent the latter to his headquarters with 
a chuckle and the parting words that A 1 Nakia was in- 


178 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


deed a warrior amongst the warriors, swift as a snake, 
keen as a tiger, and shrewd as a bull elephant in 
spring. 

The Armenian's final plea that the country needed 
the safety of the western road, that the caravan men 
were afraid of robbers, that traffic with Persia, Khiva, 
and Bokhara had practically stopped and with it the 
tax receipts. Hector dismissed by asking the other to 
develop the eastern trade. 

‘There is Afghanistan,” he said, “and India, both 
ready to buy our produce, and a good road leads there, 
the Darb-al-Sharki, ‘The Eastern Highway,’ and our 
kafilas can trade there as easily and as profitably as 
they used to with Persia. All that is needed is a little 
pluck, a little persistency, and a great deal of initiative 
—and I rely on thee, friend Gulabian, to supply all 
three!”—a broad flattery which fully served its pur¬ 
pose and sent the Armenian on his way, as pleased 
with Hector as Koom Khan had been. 

“A clever man is A 1 Nakia,” the old nurse said that 
night to Aziza Nurmahal. “He does not draw the 
sword of foolish audacity, nor does he throw away 
the scabbard of precaution, and it has indeed been 
said by a very wise man that the brain, not the body, 
is the proof of love. The body? The face? By the 
red pig’s bristles!—am I a fool or a moon-sick virgin 
of thirteen to call a thing made up of impure matter 
a face, to drink its charms as a drunkard swallows the 
ardent liquor from his cup? Not that A 1 Nakia is 
ugly. For there is a hidden fire of passion in his 
eyes that promises—ah!—^promises!” 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 179 

'^Hai—^hai—hai!” exclaimed the princess, her words 
choked with gurgling, irrepressible laughter. ‘‘By the 
Prophet—art thou then in love with A 1 Nakia, old 
woman? Why—when thou speakest of him, thy eyes 
roll about like the tail of the water-wagtail, thy 
shriveled old lips pout to resemble ripe pomegranates, 
thy ancient, flat bosom heaves like the lotus-bud 
awakening to the winds of spring. Truly, A 1 Nakia 
will feel flattered when he hears that the happiness of 
all thy desires and the desires of all thy happiness are 
concentrated in the touch of his hand, the touch of 
his lips V* 

“I am thinking of thee. Little Dream by the Gift 
of Thy Face,” gently rejoined the nurse, “and not of 
myself. What has an old witch like myself to do 
with love—what can a pig do with a rose bottle? 
But thou and he should mate. Little Moon of Ful- 
fiflment, thus finishing the old prophecy—the wooing 
of swords!” 

Aziza Nurmahal shook her head. 

“I like him well,’' she said softly, “but I do not love 
him. Love is a question—^but one cannot force the 
answer to it. Love is a lampless pilgrim, wandering 
through the black night—and looking for the moon- 
rays that never come. Love is a drifting in the stream 
of vague, sweet things—a stretching of longing arms 
at the shadowy fringe of the never-to-be!” 

“Melancholy thoughts for the heart of a babe,” said 
Ayesha Zemzem. 

And, like many another girl, before and since. East 
and West, the princess whispered, with a distinct note 
of not at all distressing self-pity: 


i8o THE MATING OF THE BLADES 

‘T shall never love anybody 

A statement which, at least subconsciously, she 
withdrew three days later, when walking through the 
Bazaar of the Goldsmiths, followed by a retinue of 
servants and eunuchs, her little face more disclosed 
than hidden by the diaphanous veil that covered her 
features from the soft curve of her chin to the tip 
of her nose, her lithe young body robed in the 
mysteriously feminine folds of a rose-red sari em¬ 
broidered with tiny seed pearls, she saw a lean, hawk¬ 
ish, black-eyed stranger standing there, dressed in the 
costume of a rich Persian gentleman; evidently a 
sightseer, a traveler, for he was watching the shifting 
crowd interestedly. 

He saw her and stared—frankly, rudely stared. 
But Aziza Nurmahal smiled, with all the shrewd de¬ 
mureness of her girlhood and with all the ancient 
wisdom of her sex, as she heard Mahsud Hakki, the 
head eunuch, make grumbling complaint that these 
were Persian manners, the manners of bad Moslems, 
of swine-fed heretics and similar base-born cattle, to 
ogle women in the bazaars and market-places. 

That night, pledging her to secrecy by the gift of 
a handful of gold coins and half-a-dozen silk saris, she 
instructed Kumar Zaida, a pert little Tajik slave girl 
whose love affairs were the scandal of the whole 
palace, to make the rounds of the caravanserais and to 
find out the name of the Persian stranger: 

^'A lean man, with high cheek bones, an aquiline, 
nose, clean-shaven, dressed in a scarlet silk khalat, a} 
white Persian lamb cap on his head. He carries his 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES i8i 


cartridge belt in the Circassian manner, from right 
shoulder to left hip f which was a remarkably faithful 
description, chiefly considering that she had only seen 
him in the fleeting fraction of a second! 

And when the next day Zaida reported that the 
stranger had left town to return to his own country, 
and that in spite of all warnings he had taken the 
western highway which was infested with the robbers 
of Abderrahman Yahiah Khan and ‘The Basin,” 
Aziza Nurmahal’s heart felt heavy within her, and 
her fingers wandered aimlessly over the strings ^of her 
rubabah, her Persian guitar. 

The stranger, meanwhile, was spurring his Balkh 
stallion up the v/estern highway, beneath the purple 
depths of the night sky where hung tiny points of 
light that glittered and glistened with the cold gleam 
of diamonds. 

“That Babu factotum of Mr. Preserved Higgins 
knows a jolly lot about Tamerlanistan,” he said to 
himself, whimsically, “but he does not know the most 
important thing. He does not know that the little 
princess has the blackest eyes in all the world. The 
wooing of swords? The fulfilling of the old 
prophecy ? All right—‘Barkis is willin’ ’—now more 
than ever!” 

And he kept on toward the west, where a faint, 
silver gray mountain was flung like a cloud against 
the sky. All night he rode, and through the soft 
spring morning that dropped over the land with a 
brocaded mantle of rose and gold, down the Darb-i- 
Sultani that was flanked by huge piles of bare rock, 
standing detached upon the surface of sand and clay 


i 82 the mating of THE BLADES 


. . . an immense expanse of land, a scalped, flayed 
wilderness where, to use the Arab saying, there lived 
nobody but Allah. Yet a land that had once been a 
granary, that had once been green with wheat and 
yellow with pulse, that had once fed hundreds of 
thousands—and that would again bear fruit, given 
irrigation, development, the granting of—“conces¬ 
sions.” 

And it was of “concessions” that, three days later, 
the stranger talked to Mr. Preserved Higgins, who 
was stretched at ease beneath the silken dome of 
Abderrahman Yahiah Khan’s tent of state, the Babu 
Bansi squatting at his feet and looking up at the 
eccentric Cockney millionaire with adoring eyes. 


CHAPTER XIII 


In which there is intrigue right and left and in the middle 
and down the spine, and in which, furthermore, the iron enters 
the buffalo’s soul. 

‘Tt^s agreed, eh?” Mr. Preserved Higgins asked 
the stranger. ‘‘You’re on, wot? Cop the gal, cop 
the swag, cop the ’ole plurry country—and then a bit 
o’ signed pyper givin’ me the right to . . 

“Yes, yes.” The stranger, alias The Honorable 
Tollemache Wade, inclined his head. “As soon as I 
am—oh—what d’you call it?” 

“Ameer of Tamerlanistan,” gently suggested Bansi. 

“Thanks, old chap. As soon as I am Ameer, I 
shall give you the ‘concession’ you want. That was 
our agreement.” 

“Right-oh!” Mr. Preserved Higgins smiled into 
his curly, russet-colored beard. “And you won’t re¬ 
gret it, nor will Tamerlanistan. I ain’t tryin’ to deny 
that I’m goin’ to myke a stiff bit o’ the ready on my 
investment. But—live and let live is my motto, and 
I tells you the country ain’t goin’ to lose. Them 
Tamerlanis are goin’ to ’ave so much tin, Rolls-Royces 
are goin’ to be as plentiful ’ereabouts as vultures are 
now. I’m goin’ to play fair, sonny, see?” 

And Mr. Preserved Higgins meant it. For he was 
characterized by a peculiar honesty in dishonesty. 

183 


i84 the mating OF THE BLADES 


Money to him was not alone the greatest power— 
which doubtless it is—but also the greatest aim in life. 
He had never really moved very far away from the 
plastic first-times of his infancy in the reeking, gray- 
blotched London slums where the possession of an 
extra sixpence had spelled an extra pint of half-and- 
half and an extra pound of chuck-steak; and, by de¬ 
veloping the waste lands and digging into the un¬ 
touched mineral resources of Tamerlanistan, while 
primarily interested in his own pocket-book, he fully 
intended giving to the native Tamerlanis the Oriental 
equivalent for the extra pint of half-and-half and the 
extra pound of meat. 

Beyond this primitive factor he could not see; and 
if anybody had told him that in Central Asia, in a 
land which partly deliberately and partly through a 
self-protective instinct prefers a simple civilization to 
the hectic, pinchbeck civilization of the Occident that 
is nine-tenths mechanical, money is the outer husk, 
not the inner kernel of life, he would have consigned 
the speaker to an unmentionable place. 

‘‘Bloody cyreful lad, that^s wot you are,” he con¬ 
tinued. “ ’Ad to ’ave a look at the gal first, didn’t 
you? Well, there ain’t no ’arm done. Seemed to 
’ave liked the looks of ’er?” 

“I did,” smiled Tollemache. 

“Wot else did you find out at the capital ?” 

“Not much. The army seems to be in good train¬ 
ing, but, from all I heard, they can’t get ammunition.” 

“That’s my old pal Rivet-Carnac’s fine ’and,” Mr. 
Preserved Higgins interjected. “ ’E does a few; 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 185 

things besides countersignin’ passports. Well—we’ll 
be ready three months from to-d’y, and A 1 Nakia 
ain’t goin’ to ’ave a permit for as much as the impor- 
tytion of a second-’and machine-gun—not ’e!” 

‘‘But he has something else, Higgins,” said Tolle- 
jnache. 

“Wot?” 

“The confidence and trust of the people.” 

“Bla^t the people!” 

“I tell you the old troublemakers, even Koom Khan 
and Gulabian, are with him.” 

“They won’t be after you win jolly bloody victory 
and make jolly old sizzlin’ entrance as the ‘Expected 
,One,’ saheb,” said the Babu. 

“Correct,” the Cockney agreed. “You just give 
us one victory, as we’re sure to ’ave, and then we’ll 
spring the news on them benighted ’eathens that you’re 
the real cheese, and that the other guy ain’t nothin’ 
but a smelly bit o’ Cheddar rind. You just w’yt. 
Glad you took my advice and kept aw’y from the 
palace”—^he added—-“damned glad.” 

He heaved a sigh of relief. 

For, shortly after their arrival at Abderrahman 
Yahiah Khan’s headquarters following Bansi’s tele¬ 
gram that A 1 Nakia was on his way to Tamerlanistan, 
the millionaire had put his cards—most of them—on 
the table. He had spoken to Tollemache Wade of the 
ancient prophecy of the swords and had suggested a 
deal by the terms of which Tamerlanistan should be 
conquered, Tollemache should marry the princess 
Aziza Nurmahal and then, to repay his obligations to 
Mr. Preserved Higgins, grant the Anglo-American 


.186 [THE MATING OF, [THE BLADES 


corporation of which the latter was the head, certain 
extensive land development concessions. 

But Tollemache had shaken his head. 

‘T won’t marry the girl until I have at least seen 
her,” he had said. 

‘‘Heaven-Born,” the Babu, who had been present 
at the interview, had exclaimed, “she is like the moon 
on the fourteenth day! She is a precious casket filled 
with the arts of coquetry! She is . . .” 

“I don’t trust your taste in feminine beauty, dear 
boy,” Tollemache had smiled; and when Mr. Pre¬ 
served Higgins had made some sardonic remarks to 
the effect that, judging from his experiences with 
Gwendolyn de Vere, Tollemache could do worse than 
accept somebody else’s opinions in affairs of the heart, 
the younger man had replied that this was just the 
reason why he was going to be doubly careful in the 
future. 

“I am going to take a look at her,” he had repeated, 
stubbornly. 

“Impossible I” Mr. Higgins had exclaimed, afraid 
that Tollemache, if he went to Tamerlanistan, might 
see his brother and recognize him. 

“Impossible—rot! I speak Persian like a native. 
I can easily go to the capital, see the princess—some¬ 
how—and incidentally find out a few things about the 
military situation.” 

Finally, after he had raged and threatened for half 
an hour, but had found Tollemache obdurate, Mr. 
Preserved Higgins had agreed. But he had made 
Tollemache promise that, under no conditions, would 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 187, 

he go near the palace or in any other way put himself 
in a position where A 1 Nakia might see him. 

“For,” he had said, mixing truth and lies, “A 1 
Nakia is an Englishman, doubtless an officer—and 
mebbe ’e knows you and might recognize you—and 
then the jig’ll be bloomin’ well up—see?” 

And so now Mr. Preserved Higgins felt relieved, 
and it was with a great deal of zest that he devoted 
the following days to preparations for the coming at¬ 
tack against Tamerlanistan. Though not a military 
man, his advice was sane and constructive. For he 
had fought many a battle in the shrill arena of finance, 
and there is a great deal of similarity between the 
mind which uses the massed battalions of coined gold 
and the mind which uses bullets and guns and human 
flesh and blood. 

In either case, strategy counts fully as much as brute 
force. Strategy, patience, ability to wait, to sit tight, 
to take punishment—and in this respect Mr. Pre¬ 
served Higgins, in the western marches, was playing 
practically the same game which Hector Wade was 
playing in the capital. 

“We ain’t in no ’urry,” the Cockney said. “We 
want to win this ’ere war, and we don’t want nothin’ 
to miscarry. I’d rather ’ave that A 1 Nakia blighter at¬ 
tack us ’ere, where we knows the ground, than attack 
’im on ’is own ground.” 

“I assure you they are short of ammunition,” in¬ 
sisted Tollemache. 

“Mebbe. That’s just why we should w’yt till we 
’ave a surplus of ammunition.” 


.i88 iTHE MATING OF THE BLADES 


And he carried his opinions against that of Tolle- 
mache who was anxious to see again the little princess^ 
black, hooded eyes, and against that of Abderrahman 
Yahiah Khan and “The Basin” whose appetite for the 
rich loot of Tamerlanistan was increasing with each 
passing day; and he went ahead with his careful, 
methodical preparations until, nearly a week later, a 
great wave of excitement surged through the camp 
of the rebels. 

It began with the Arab gunner, a deserter from the 
pTurkish army who was presiding over the destinies 
of the machine gun that protected the silken tents of 
the leaders, suddenly shading his eyes, looking steadily 
down the Darb-i-Sultani, then bending feverishly to 
his weapon, working the screw-levers with brown, 
nimble fingers and sliding the gim so that the ugly, 
blunt muzzle pointed due east, with a wicked, snap¬ 
ping recoil, like a beast of prey sniffing for blood. 

Tollemache Wade happened to be passing. 

“Whaf s up, Mehmet ?” he asked. 

The Arab pointed—and gave a shrill, throaty yell 
of warning which electrified the camp into instant 
action. 

Arabs and Persians and rebel Tamerlanis and riff¬ 
raff of all Asia that had joined Abderrahman Yahiah 
Khan came tumbling out of tents and huts, strapping 
on carbines and revolvers, swords and daggers as they 
ran . . . with a babel of cries, in soft, purring 
Persian, in limpid Turkish, in virile, guttural Arabig 
and high-pitched Tartar . . . 

^‘Zid! Zid! Yah Ullahrr^ 


l 


JHE MATING OF THE BLADES 189 

**Ikhs ya'l kHammar —O thou drunkard!*’ ludi¬ 
crously to a frenzied, plunging stallion— 

''A llahu—A Halm ^ 

*'Bismillah irrahmdn errahminT —and, clear above 
the turmoil, Mr. Preserved Higgins* nasal, twangy 
‘T say—wot the ’ell’s up?”, then, to a frantic Nubian: 
“Get off my feet, you bleedin’ swine!”, blending fan¬ 
tastically, ridiculously with Abderrahman Yahiah 
Khan’s full-flavored curses as he pushed his way 
through the crowd with fist and elbow. 

“Give way—give way there!” 

The governor reached the side of the gunner who, 
tense, quivering, was still bending over his weapon, 
drawing a bead straight toward the east, while the 
soldiers, under Tollemache Wade’s sharp commands, 
were deploying in a half circle, rifles ready for the 
“Fire!” 

By this time Mr. Preserved Higgins, too, had 
reached the gunner’s side. 

Pie looked. 

Far in the east, a blast of sirocco wind filled with 
stabbing, biting particles of desert sand had whirled 
up on the feathery sky line. A mass of violet-red 
nimbus, furrowed horizontally by a thin, wavery gray 
line of mist cloud, and nicked with gold and yellow, 
as of the sun mirroring on polished weapons, rolled 
down, steadily gathering momentum. 

There was a savage humming and zumming and 
roaring. Too, sudden, grimly staccato noises—like 
steel clanking against steel—swords—lance butts— 

“War!” Musa Al-Mutasim came running up with 
great speed, in spite of his huge, amorphous bulk, 


190 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 

rifle in hand. '"Al Nakia’s men—they’re attacking 
us!” 

“Yes!” Mr. Preserved Higgins turned on Tolle- 
'mache. “You are a silly plurry ass, aren’t you? 
Told me, didn’t you, they was unprepared? My word 
—of all the . . 

“Keep your hair on!” advised Tollemache. “If 
these are A1 Nakia’s soldiers, our spies and scouts 
would have brought us warning.” 

“They may have been overpowered, saheb,” sug¬ 
gested “The Basin.” “Look—look!” 

For the cloud grew. Rolling on as mercilessly as 
Fate, it seemed to spread, to jump into a pattern, 
brown and black, blotched with white and vivid scarlet. 
The roaring and zumming increased— 

A faint neighing of horses. A tinkling of camels’ 
bells. A thumping of kettle-drums. 

Then a flash of lance points and sword blades and 
metal-bossed arm shields. Shrill cries. The por¬ 
tentous thunder of galloping horses. The soft, 
rhythmic thud of the dromedaries’ padded feet. 

Tollemache jerked aside the arm of the Arab gun¬ 
ner who was just about to swing the machine-gun on 
its swivel and rake the oncoming horde with shot. 
“Stop it!” he cried; and, to his captains who shouted 
the order down the deployed lines: 

“Hold your fire—hold your fire!”—and he des¬ 
patched a messenger to a camp beyond the main camp 
where the few pieces of artillery which Mr. Preserved 
Higgins had shipped through from the Persian Gulf 
were served by specially trained men. 

“Wot the ’ell are you w’ytin’ for?” cried the 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES igi 

Cockney, who was nearly hysterical by this time. 
“Go on—give the order to fire—or . . 

“Shut up, you little foolTollemache took him by 
the collar and shook him. “If they are enemies, I 
am going to hold my fire until the very last moment. 
And if they are not enemies . . 

“I tell you they are!” 

“I am not sure. They wouldn’t be such fools as to 
attack us in mass formation—^not if, as you say, A1 
Nakia used to be in the service . . 

And then, quite suddenly, Abderrahman Yahiah 
Khan raised a hairy, brown hand. 

“Listen!” he said. “The saheb is right. These are 
not enemies. They are friends!” 

And, through the sudden, dense silence, out of the 
mass of people on horse and camel back into which the 
oncoming cloud had steadily crystallized, a voice 
drifted forth: 

''Marhaha Bik! Yah—Marhaba Bik! —Greetings! 
Greetings I” 

The throaty shout tore clear from the gathering 
rush. A lonely/ rider detached himself. At full 
speed he galloped up, a white flag jerking crazily from 
the point of his long, tufted bamboo lance; and, a 
moment later, Abderrahman Yahiah Khan recognized 
him: 

“Koom Khan! Koom Khan!” 

“Salaam! A thousand salaams—and one—and yet 
another one!” replied the other, wheeling his horse so 
suddenly that it fell on its haunches and slid, squatting, 
through the soft sand. The next moment he was on 
his feet and ran the rest of the distance, his dyed beard 


192 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


waving across his shoulder like a crimson flag, and he 
knelt down in front of the astonished governor of the 
western marches, hands outspread, forehead touching 
the dust in sign of supplication. 

*T demand protection, my lord!” he implored. 
‘Trotection for myself, for the Sheik-ul-Islam’'—in¬ 
dicating the priest who had ridden up—“and for my 
people—my women and children and slaves!” 

“Protection against whom ?” demanded the other. 

“Against A1 Nakia Y* 

And the next moment, according to the ancient 
Moslem ceremonial, Abderrahman Yahiah Khan 
pressed Koom Khan to his stout breast, murmuring 
piously: 

''Nahnu malihin —we shall eat salt together Y\ 
while “The Basin,’^ in answer to Mr. Preserved Hig¬ 
gins’ whispered suspicion that he did not trust Koom 
Khan, that perhaps treachery was in the wind, re¬ 
plied that No!—if Koom Khan intended treachery, 
he would not have been such a fool as to bring his 
women and slaves and servants and children with him. 

And he had. 

For, by this time, the rest of the cavalcade had 
come up and it turned out to be composed of several 
hundred people, on foot, on horseback, on drome¬ 
daries, the servants armed with lances and rifles and 
metal-bossed shields. But there were many women 
and children, some mounted behind slaves or astride 
the large, green painted boxes of the pack animals; 
a few, doubtless women of high degree, in gaudy, 
linsely takht-rawan litters carried by slaves. 

Yes—^Mr. Preserved Higgins admitted—here was a 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 193 

sure sign that Koom Khan and the Sheik-ul-Islam had 
come as friends, bringing peace. 

Too, there was no doubt whatsoever about the 
priest's sincerity as, late that night, with the Babu 
Bansi playing as dragoman, he poured the tale of his 
grievances into the, if not sympathetic, then at least 
interested, ears of the eccentric millionaire, telling him 
how Hector Wade had treated him with contumely 
and ridicule, making him, a priest, a holy man, a 
Sheik of the Faith, a doctor of Koranic law, a famous 
compiler of many learned commentaries on Moslem 
theology, a laughing-stock before the courtiers and 
palace slaves. 

^'Al Nakia is a pig,” he wound up, ‘'with a pig’s 
heart. So was his father a pig before him, and his 
grandfather before his father.” 

A statement in which, after the Babu had translated 
it, Mr. Preserved Higgins concurred heartily. 

“Right-oh!” he replied. “Can’t myke it too strong 
for me, cocky. T was born orf Soho, and I don’t like 
that there A1 Nakia bird any more than you do!”— 
and he clapped the Sheik-ul-Islam familiarly on the 
shoulder. 

The latter could not understand a word of English, 
but he read in the Cockney’s small, blinking eyes that 
there was no difference of opinion here about the 
physical and spiritual characteristics of the de facto 
ruler of Tamerlanistan, and so he added, as a happy 
afterthought, that he personally—and Allah was his 
witness that he was a decent and mild man, not given 
to vituperation-considered AJ Nakia hyena epawa 


19? lTHE mating of JHE BLADES 

without faith or morals or manners—except bad 
manners! 

*'Go right ahead, sonny!” encouraged the Cockney. 
‘‘Shoot off that ugly mouth o’ yours. Call ’im bad 
nymes, if it ’elps your liver any. But”—turning to 
the Babu—“tell ’is nibs when ’e’s through with ’is 
nytive Billingsgyte about that A 1 Nakia blighter, that 
I’d like to talk business to ’im.” 

“Business—see?” he addressed the Sheik-ul-Islam 
direct, making that gesture with thumb and index 
finger which stands for money the world over, and 
the other smiled and wagged his carefully curled 
beard. 

And so they did talk business, very much to both 
gentlemen’s satisfaction, while, in a neighboring tent, 
Koom Khan was entertaining the governor of the 
western marches with a similar tale of Hector’s short¬ 
comings, winding up softly, ingenuously, with: 

“A 1 Nakia is a saheb, and thou knowest what the 
sahebs are —all sahebs”—dwelling slightly on the 
word, and winking rapidly in the direction of the 
neighboring tent whence drifted the sound of Mr. Pre¬ 
served Higgins’ raucous voice. 

Of old, the governor was familiar with his country¬ 
man’s methods of innuendo. 

“Didst thou say —all sahebs, heart of my heart?” 
he inquired, casually, duplicating the other’s wink. 

“Yes.” Koom Khan sighed. “Thou knowest the 
saheb-log. They either give thee three times what 
thou deservest, or they give thee nothing at all. 
Strange cattle—I do not trust them.” 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 195 

And after a pause, a silence broken only by the 
gurgling sounds of the hubble-bubbles, he went on, 
with sudden, frank, naive simplicity: 

“Abderrahman—I do not trust thy saheb T’ 

“Higgins saheb?” 

“No. The other saheb—-who looks like a lance at 
rest.” 

“Ah?” breathed the governor, without looking up. 

“Indeed. There is about him a lean and nasty 
wolfishness of expression that, if I had a herd of 
sheep to protect, would cause me to double my sticks 
and treble my swords and quadruple my camp fires— 
that would induce me to surround myself with nine¬ 
teen times nineteen traps. Good, sound traps that 
snap the wolf's legs and keep him—where he belongs!” 

And when Abderrahman Yahiah Khan raised his 
eyebrows, questioningly, he stabbed a finger through 
the half-open tent flap toward the purpling night sky 
where a big, detached cloud was floating across the 
face of the moon. 

“The moon careth not for the cloud,” he said, “and 
the saheb-log careth not for me—or thee—unless it be 
to use us for personal benefit.” 

He was silent. 

From the outside came a soft, throaty gurgle of 
camels jerking at their headstalls, and a feeble, dry 
sound of a sentinel's rifle dragging against the 
withered, tufted desert grass; and, presently, the tail 
end of an English song flung to the night in Tolle- 
mache Wade's frank, untrained voicej 

^‘Here's to the fox 

In his earth bdow the rocks • b 


196 J'HE MATING OF THE BLADES 

‘^Decidedly/’ went on Koom Khan, ‘'if I were thou, 
I would cut the saheb’s throat.’’ 

He said it with simple, sincere ruthlessness, undis¬ 
guised, but neither vindictive nor cruel; rather with 
something which proved beyond all doubt that he was 
of the Orient, which showed, in a way, how an Asian 
can hold to the blind belief of his personal will, con¬ 
viction, or even whim against the opinions, the cus¬ 
toms, the saving prejudices, and the codified laws of 
the rest of the world; something of that profoundly 
sincere and honest stubbornness, that trust in himself 
against all odds, which, on the one hand, can turn 
the leader of a band of nomad cut-throats—an Attila 
or a Genghiz Khan, a Nadir Shah or a Peshwah 
Saheb—into a scourge of mankind, and, on the other 
hand, can change an ordinary peasant or fisherman 
into a prophet of the faith. 

Both ruthlessness, lawlessness, serene contempt and 
negligence of existing conditions—working for the 
good or for the bad, as the case may be. 

“Kill him, soul of my soul,” Koom Khan repeated, 
“and let the rest be as Allah willeth.” 

The other puffed at his pipe. Of old, he knew 
Koom Khan; knew, thus, that he was chary of speech 
and that the blood-thirsty advice was not the result of 
a sudden racial or cultural animosity against the saheb- 
log. There must be another, more direct cause. 

Finally he decided to ask a frank question—frank, 
that is, according to the limitations of the Oriental 
mind. 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 197 

‘^Koom Khan/' he said, '"I do not love the sahebs 
any more than thou. Yet am I a reasonable man, 
washed in thirty-seven buckets of patient wisdom. 
Tell me," he went on, dreamily, '"if a scorpion could 
spin a silk cocoon, would I crush it under foot—or 
would I feed it choice mulberry leaves?" 

'^But"—came the counter question, ^‘suppose the 
scorpion weaves a silken net with which to strangle— 
theer 

The governor shook his head. 

‘‘No, no," he said. “The saheb intends no 
treachery. He is my ally. He needs my armed men, 
my knowledge of the land, as I need his wisdom in 
war, and the other saheb’s money-bags. We made a 
bargain." 

“And yet," Koom Khan breathed, softly, “I have 
heard in the bazaars that the young saheb dreams of 
mating with the princess Aziza Nurmahal." 

Abderrahman Yahiah Khan looked puzzled. 

“Why—of course!" he rejoined. “Such is the 
understanding. The saheb is the ‘Expected One’ 1 " 

“Is he?" 

Koom Khan laughed long and riotously, his whole 
body shaken jerkily by the panting, gurgling catches 
of his breath. 

But it was not a merry laughter—^bitter it was, 
grim, sardonic. And grim, too, was his excla¬ 
mation, as he rose and stretched his stout arms to 
heaven: 

“By the teeth of God—I was a fool, then, to leave 
the silken security of Tamerlanistan, to brave the dan¬ 
gers of the open road with my women and servants 


198 [THE MATING OF THE BLADES 

and children, to come to thee and ask thee for the 
hand of protection and the sweet salt of hospitality! 
I was a fool—a fool 

''But—I thought that thou hadst a quarrel with A 1 
Nakia/* 

"I did—because of thee, soul of my soul 1 ” 

"Because of—me?’' 

"Yes—because of thee and of thy twin brother, the 
governor of the eastern marches . . 

"May his soul pass quickly into the dark 1 " the other 
interjected with brotherly affection. And he asked: 
"What has that brother of mine, that son of a dog, to 
do with . . 

"Everything. He came to court, speaking slurring 
words about thee—at least I thought then that they 
were slurring. He said how first thou hadst sent 
brave messages that thou wouldst conquer Tamer- 
lanistan and wed the princess, and how afterwards 
thou didst show thyself a most base-born dog by giv¬ 
ing up thy claims to the princess' hand for a turban¬ 
ful of gold. I called thy brother a liar. There were 
words. Swords were drawn. A 1 Nakia took thy 
brother's part, and I defied him and came here—and 
now thou dost tell me—that indeed . . . Bismillah! 
I was a fool I" 

And again he broke into raucous laughter, while 
the governor looked down, silent, meditative. 

"Abderrahman," said Koom Khan, rising, "it is 
against the blessed laws of decency for a Moslem to 
discuss a woman, to speak of her soul and heart and 
desires. To do so are the manners of infidel pigs. 
But—thou art my friend. Thou hast opened wide to 


■JHE MATING OF THE BLADES 199 

me the tent of thy hospitality. We have eaten salt 
and bread together. Thus I shall tell thee V* 

‘‘What?’’ 

“About Aziza Nurmahal. She heard of thy one¬ 
time boast, that thou wouldst make her a captive to 
thy bow and spear and marry her, with or against her 
will. And she said to a slave who is a friend of a 
dancing girl whom I know well—alas! too well!”— 
he sighed—“she said that she loves a bold man, a 
careless man, a free man who takes by force what his 
passion and love desires. And—thou . . .” He 
slurred, stopped, and went on; “If I were thou, I 
would cut the saheb’s throat. But then I am an im¬ 
pulsive man, a man who plunges into the pool of life 
negligent of its black, frowning depths, a foolish man 
who always plays the game of his undoing—and not, 
as thou art, a wise man, a careful counter of gold and 
silver and other loot!” 

And, late that night, he sent a trusted slave up the 
Darb-i-Sultani, who arrived at the palace of Tamer- 
lanistan three days later, with the metaphorical mes¬ 
sage to A 1 Nakia: 

“Koom Khan sends many salaams. Too, he sends word that 
the iron has entered the buffalo’s soul. Presently the buffalo 
will turn and gore to the death the lean saheb who looks like 
a lance at rest.” 

“Good!” cried Gulabian, after Hector had told 
him the message. 

“Good!” croaked the old nurse. 

“Good indeed!” echoed Aziza Nurmahal. 

But Hector shook his head. It was the latter part 


200 JHE MATING OF THE BLADES 


of the message which disturbed him. For, while he 
himself had sent Koom Khan to the rebel camp to 
spread there the seeds of mistrust and dissension, he 
had never imagined that the man would elaborate his 
instructions so as to cause Abderrahman Yahiah 
Khan to commit murder. 

Murder! Deliberate, cold-blooded murder! 

No, no! It went against his grain, and he said so 
to the others: 

‘T won’t have it. It can’t be done.” 

“Thou art a saheb!” grumbled the old nurse. 
“Thou art a soft man . . 

“And it is the sahebs’ softness,” smilingly cut in 
Hector, “which is their strength. Their softness is 
the rope by which they dangle the world to their 
fancy.” 

And he sent the messenger back to Koom Khan 
with the words: 

“A1 Nakia sends many salaams, and the following explicit 
instructions: there is no worth in blood; blood forever demands 
to be wiped out by darkening blood, making the red chain end¬ 
less. Thus, do not let the buffalo redden his horns with the 
lean saheb’s gore.” 


CHAPTER XIV 


The governor of the western marches “gets religion.” Mr. 
Warburton gives bakshish to Baluchi ruffians! Hector rushes 
off! And the old nurse decides that fhe little princess should 
marry a man who beats her—not too much! 

When the confidential messenger returned to the 
rebel camp and delivered Hector’s instructions to 
Koom Khan, the latter shrugged his massive shoulders 
resignedly and observed, with a painful effect after 
casualness, that A 1 Nakia might have saved himself 
the trouble since an elephant was an elephant on low 
ground as well as on high, while a coward was a 
coward with or without a weapon. 

A cryptic saying which the messenger was presently 
able to decipher by listening to the rumors, the babble 
and gossip and laughter, that swept through the camp, 
causing the Arabs to scream with amusement after the 
manner of their kind, causing the Persians to make 
impromptu and mostly indecent puns, causing the 
renegade Tamerlanis to slap their stout thighs in an 
abandonment of mirth—causing, furthermore, Mr. 
Preserved Higgins to curse fantastically and the 
Sheik-ul-Islam to declare, with hypocritical, pontifical 
unction, that Allah was indeed most great, and that 
there was shining truth in the sura of the Koran 
where it said that ‘Verily repentance will be accepted 
201 


202 iTHE MATING OF THE BLADES 


by Allah from those who do evil ignorantly, and then 
repent speedily; unto them Allah will turn with for¬ 
giveness; for He is knowing and wise and merciful!” 

For it appeared that, suddenly, without any known 
reason, both Abderrahman Yahiah Khan and his 
friend and ally, ‘The Basin,” had—to put it vulgarly 
—“got religion.” 

At first, when early that morning the governor of 
the western marches mentioned that he and Musa Al- 
Mutasim were goi ig toward the Afghan border on a 
pious pilgrimage to the shrine of a certain canonized 
doctor of Koranic theology, called Syyed Ahmet el- 
Tachfin the Clarified-Butter Seller, and to go there 
through many intricate religious rites and ceremonies, 
Mr. Preserved Higgins and Tollemache Wade treated 
it in the light of a rather crude jest. For it was a 
notorious fact that, of all the bad Moslems in Central 
Asia, Abderrahman Yahiah Khan was the worst, with 
Musa Al-Mutasim running him a close second. From 
gambling to drinking fermented spirits, from refusing 
alms to the poor to robbing the orphans of their por¬ 
tion, from practicing usury to neglecting their prayers, 
there were few Koranic laws which they did not break, 
almost daily, and with a sort of sneering bravado. 

“Right-oh!” said Mr. Higgins, the Babu interpret¬ 
ing. “That’s wot you need—religion—bloomin’ fine 
joke!” 

But the other turned on him a stony and reproach¬ 
ful eye. 

“Saheb,” he said, “it is not fitting to make a mock 
of a man’s honest repentance. I have been a sinner of 
sins. So has Musa Al-Mutasim. And now we go 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 203 

to the shrine of the Clarified-Butter Seller to cleanse 
our souls and to make our peace with Allah and his 
blessed Prophet!’' 

Then, suddenly, it dawned upon Tollemache Wade 
that the man was in earnest, and so he tried to argue 
with him, told him to defer his sacred pilgrimage until 
after the coming campaign against Tamerlanistan. 

The governor shook his head. 

“No, no,” he said. “For too many years have I 
broken the blessed laws of the Prophet Mohammed—” 

“On whom Peace!” chimed in “The Basin” sono¬ 
rously and mendaciously. 

“And last night, in my dreams, the Prophet spoke 
to me and told me that ill luck would follow my enter¬ 
prise unless I repent my sins and follies and evil 
deeds.” ♦ 

“But—^look here—what about . . . ?” 

“Do not worry, saheb. It will be months yet before 
we will be ready to attack Tamerlanistan and put thee 
on the throne as the ‘Expected One.' Do thou con¬ 
tinue drilling the troops, while I and Musa Al- 
Mutasim prostrate our ignoble bodies before the 
sainted spirit of the Clarified-Butter Seller!” 

Practically the same thing he said to Koom Khan, 
who fumed and raged. 

“Thou art a fool, Abderrahman Yahiah Khan! 
First thou shouldst cut the saheb's throat—then thy 
prayers will rise the more sweetly to Allah's nostrils!” 

Abderrahman Yahiah Khan heaved a sigh of hypo¬ 
critical resignation. 

“Heart of my heart,” he said, gently, “thou, too, 
art a sinner of sins, a deceiver of deceits, a curser of 


204 the mating of THE BLADES 


curses. Come with me and Musa Al-Mutasim. 
Prostrate thy unworthy self before . . 

“Coward screamed Koom Khan, who saw that his 
pet scheme, the murder of Tollemache Wade by 
the governor’s hands, was slipping away. “Fool! 
Drunkard! Jew! Christian! O thou abuser of the 
salt! O thou cold of countenance! O thou son of a 
burnt father! O thou spawn of exceeding filth! O 
thou whose back should be slippered with many slip- 
perings! O thou . . 

“I am all that,” said the governor, inclining his 
head with a fine show of humility, “and a great and 
wicked sinner. Thus, too, is Musa Al-Mutasim,” 
pointing at “The Basin,” who stood motionless, though 
he was choking with inward laughter. “And that is 
just why we go on pilgrimage to cleanse our 
souls . . .” 

“Curse your filthy souls!” 

“Peace, brother Moslem! Peace and patience!” 
said the governor, making a mental note of the in¬ 
sults the other had heaped on his head and promising 
to repay them later on with interest. There was no 
hurry. 

And, half an hour later, he and the renegade Arab 
were off, astride swift sowarri racing dromedaries, 
toward the southeast, away from the Darh-i-Sultani, 
skirting Tamerlanistan’s southern frontier, in the di¬ 
rection of the Persian Gulf. 

They drove their grunting, protesting animals merci¬ 
lessly, at top speed, through an arid land spotted with 
sweet-scented shih grass and dwarf acacia, and torn 


(THE MATING OF THE BLADES 205 

by dry, rock-strewn watercourses that had once been 
used for irrigation purposes—watercourses on which 
both Mr. Preserved Higgins and Mr. Warburton were 
figuring in their hunt after ‘'concessions”—water¬ 
courses the eastern end of which an Afghan guide 
was just then pointing out to the American as the 
caravan which had brought him and his daughter 
from India, was reaching the eastern plains of Tamer- 
lanistan. 

On they rode, the robber chief's immense bulk bob¬ 
bing up and down like a meal sack, the governor 
perched on his peaked saddle like a lean, ironic mon¬ 
key, and as they rode, they talked, and as they talked 
they laughed—riotously, exaggeratedly. 

Yet, had Koom Khan or the Cockney millionaire 
taken the precaution of having them followed, they 
would have noticed that, a few days later, the two 
repentant sinners seemed suddenly to forget all about 
their pilgrimage to the shrine of the canonized Clari- 
fied-Butter Seller. 

For, a day's journey from the Afghan border where 
it dips toward the Persian Gulf, they turned due 
north, through an alluvial plain studded with basalt 
rocks and jagged green stone; above, a sky like 
polished, blue steel, with a tremendous blaze of orange 
sunlight that glared down without the thinnest veil of 
mist cloud. 

There were few signs of life, and they were glad 
of it, as their plan depended as much on secrecy as 
on speed; only once in a while a carrion kite poised 
high in the parched heavens, or, silently, sulkily jog- 


2o6 the mating of THE BLADES 


ging along, an Afghan or Baluchi camel rider, whose 
jaws and brows were bound mummy fashion against 
the stinging sand of the desert; and late one afternoon 
they overtook a gigantic cotton wain that was drawn 
by twenty bullocks about the size of Newfoundland 
dogs—a sign that they were drawing nearer to the 
capital. 

A few words with the driver of the wain elicited 
the information that the weekly caravan from India 
was due in twenty-four hours, and so, having decided, 
for reasons of their own, to go to the capital; having 
furthermore decided, for reasons connected with the 
safety of their heads, that it would be unwise to do 
so in their characters of rebel leader and robber chief, 
they kept on to the north, and, the following day, 
reached the Darb-al-Sharki, the highway that enters 
Tamerlanistan from the east, having made a sweep¬ 
ing detour around the city and debouched on a spot 
far removed from the direction of the western 
marches. 

There they dismounted, took off their clothes, 
opened their saddle-bags, and, inside of half an hour, 
faced each other looking for all the world like a 
couple of ruffianly Afghan charpadars, drovers, with 
their beards shaved off, their mustaches well trimmed, 
their heads crowned with immense fur caps that came 
down over their brows, their bodies in tattered shirts, 
indigo-dyed, and girt with twisted camel-hair ropes, 
their legs sheathed in loose muslin trousers, their feet 
protected from the stones of the road by sandals of 
thick leather kept in place by narrow thongs tied to 
the ankles, grefat iron spurs strapped to their naked 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 207 

heels, and appropriately armed with cheray daggers 
and pistols. 

Then, having hobbled their dromedaries, they sat 
down by the side of the road, filled their mouths with 
finely cut pan, chewed and spat contentedly, and smiled 
at one another as Greek is said to smile at Greek. 

“They’'—said Musa Al-Mutasim, pointing in the 
general direction of Tamerlanistan and giving the 
Arab equivalent for swallowing the bait, hook, line, 
and sinker—“will climb the thorn tree and wish they 
had not forgotten their loin-cloths.” 

“Yes. For who would recognize the great brigand 
chief, Musa Al-Mutasim, in a lousy Afghan charpa- 
darf * inquired Abderrahman Yahiah Khan. 

“And who,” countered “The Basin,” “would recog¬ 
nize in even such a one the haughty and renowned 
governor of the western marches ?” 

“Not A 1 Nakia, Ihope!” 

“Nor that Armenian son of a pig!” 

“Nor Ayesha Zemzem!” 

“Nor Wahab al-Shaitan 1 ” 

“Nor,” said the governor with a wink and a leer, 
“the little, little princess until . . .” 

“Yes,” smiled the Arab as the other paused, “until 
thy strong arms crush her against thy breast I” 

And they talked for a long time, with frequent 
allusions to Hajji Akhbar Khan, Itizad el-Dowleh, the 
old prime minister who had gone to the far places 
shortly before the Ameer’s death, and to a certain 
ancient Tartar castle which, judging from the Arab’s 
gestures, was situated somewhere, vaguely, in the 
southwest and was named Jabul-i-Shuhada, “The 


2o8 the mating of THE BLADES 


Place of the Martyrs,” after a handful of Moslem 
braves who had once defended it, for over two years, 
against an army of savage, heathen Turkis. 

'Tt is a stout place, easy to defend,” said the Arab, 
'‘and it is always in readiness. Often have I found 
there asylum and safety.” 

“Good!” 

And then they smiled and were silent again, and 
waited patiently, until, late in the afternoon, when 
a faint, silvery tinkle of camels' bells and a neighing 
of horses warned them that the caravan which they 
were expecting was approaching. 

Not long afterwards it came into view, the camels 
jogging along Indian file, tied head to tail, looming up 
on the sky line like a grotesque scrawl of Arab hand¬ 
writing. At the head of the caravan, followed by 
half-a-dozen mounted, armed tofanghees, irregular 
soldiers, rode the leader, a gigantic Baluchi. At the 
very end a shugduf litter was carried between two 
swaying, pacing dromedaries. 

It was made of wicker and carved and painted 
deodar wood, elaborately ornamented with silk cord¬ 
age and covered with a splendid Daghestan rug in 
heliotrope and rose. The curtains were open, giving 
a glimpse of the occupant, a young girl, fair haired, 
brown eyed; and by its side rode a man on a fiery 
Kabuli stallion that he found difficulty in controlling. 

It may have been the fault of the saddle—an Ameri¬ 
can McClellan, and not the huge, peaked affair to which 
Central Asian horses are .used—and it was this sad- 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 209 

die which first attracted Musa Al-Mutasim’s special 
attention. 

“A foreigner/' he said. ^‘A saheb—^yes!" His^ 
gray eyes lit up as they roamed to the glimpse of 
golden hair and milky skin between the curtains of 
the litter. ‘"And a foreign woman—a mem-saheb!” 

“We are in luck!" laughed Abderrahman Yahiah 
Khan, “for it is easy to lie to a saheb. Too easy!" 
he added, almost regretfully, like a man who is wast¬ 
ing his God-given talent on an unappreciative audience. 

And, a few minutes later, he and “The Basin" 
salaamed before the foreigner, their arms folded 
across their breasts in sign of fealty and humility, and 
imploring the saheb for permission to join his caravan 
as far as the capital. For, to quote Abderrahman 
Yahiah Khan's words, a wise man “muddies his trail." 

The Baluchi, who was the leader of the caravan 
and who had a fair knowledge of English, acted as 
dragoman, and it is a moot question whether it was 
through intention or accident that Musa Al-Mutasim 
let him see the bulging middle of a well-filled purse. 

At all events, the Baluchi, whose name was Nu- 
reddin Zaid, seconded the prayers of the two men. 

“They are poor, Warburton saheb," he said. 
“They ask you for your protection. They say that 
you are their father and their mother . . 

“How gorgeously thrilling, dad!" came a soft voice 
from the litter, and Jane looked down. “Why, I al¬ 
ways thought that I was all the family you had—and 
here you are father and mother to . . ." 

Mr. Warburton made an impatient gesture. 


210 lTHE mating of the blades 


*'No, Nureddin,” he said to the Baluchi. “Tell 
them Tm sorry, but . . 

“Why not, dad?” asked the girl. “Do let them 
come with us. They are such picturesque ruffians— 
and I simply dote on local color!” 

Mr. Warburton grumbled. 

“I can't do it, Jane,” he said. “S^r James Rivet- 
Carnac was very particular about strangers not join¬ 
ing our caravan.” 

For Sir James, the day before the Warburtons had 
left Calcutta, had had a confidential message from Mr. 
Preserved Higgins. 

The latter had received cabled advice from a cer¬ 
tain sandy-haired gentleman who had an office in 
Upper Thames Street, London, that the mysterious 
old Oriental in Coal Yard Street, off Drury Lane, had 
left England; and Mr. Higgins, thinking that the 
Oriental, if he came to Tamerlanistan, might, for cer¬ 
tain reasons which he talked over with the Babu, 
seriously interfere with his plan of proclaiming Tolle- 
mache Wade as the “Expected One”; knowing that 
it would be very difficult to shadow the old man once 
he had disappeared in India's brown swirl; and be¬ 
lieving, finally, in sweeping and ruthless methods when 
big things were at stake, had requested Sir James 
that, temporarily, all caravans from India to Tamer- 
vlanistan be stopped. 

Sir James had tried to obey. But Mr. Warburton 
had been obdurate, had used counter-influences with 
the India Office, and had received his passports. 
Finally Sir James had compromised by endeavoring 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 211 


to make sure that nobody except the Warburtons and 
their guide and servants should leave India for Tamer- 
lahistan; and so, with the help of mendacious warn¬ 
ings about some mysterious Russian political intrigue, 
he had asked the American to let no stranger attach 
himself to his caravan at any time of the journey. 

‘T can^t do it, Jane,’’ repeated Mr. Warburton. ‘Tt 
wouldn’t be fair to Sir James.” 

‘T don’t care!” the girl exclaimed. 'Tair to Sir 
James—indeed! Why, he’s a dreadful person. Re¬ 
member how he boasted about refusing a passport to 
Hector—and yet I wager Hector got away all right, 
otherwise I would have heard from him or seen 
him . . . Dad!” she went on, ‘'haven’t I been nice 
about Hector?” 

“Nice? What do you mean?” 

“Well—I didn’t nag you about him, did I? I’ve 
hardly ever mentioned him these last weeks.” 

“That’s true,” admitted her father, rather grudg¬ 
ingly. 

“Well—^then you really might be a dear and do that 
little thing for me!” 

“What little thing?” 

“To let these two men join our caravan.” 

“But why, child?” 

'‘Oh—they are so funny—the thin one who looks 
like an Asiatic Don Quixote, and the fat one who 
looks like a wicked Pickwick! They’ll lend such a 
bully spice of romance to our trip!” 

“Oh . . . romance! This is a business trip, 
daughter.” 


212 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


''Don’t rub it in, dad—and don’t you dare play 
the tired business man ’steen thousand miles away 
from Wall Street!” 

And, seeing her father smile in spite of himself 
and interpreting it as his permission for her to do as 
she pleased, she turned to the Baluchi and told him 
the two strangers were welcome to join them. 

Whence many salaams, flowery thanks, and Musa 
Al-Mutasim’s gray, piercing eyes resting admiringly 
on this strong-willed mem-saheb who—as he whis¬ 
pered into his friend’s ear—"drives the passion of a 
man as the east wind drives a sheet of flame I” 

Thus rebel governor and robber chief accompanied 
the Warburton party in their roles of simple Afghan 
charpadars, speaking little, but listening attentively to 
the gossip of the ser\ants and soldiers; they traveled 
at a good speed; and they had already drawn within 
sight of the capital, with its terrace roofs stretching 
white, the palm gardens that bordered the suburbs 
lifting their feathery fronds coquettishly, and the 
elaborate dome of the Gengizkhani palace arrogantly 
rising to the tight, sapphire-blue heaven, when Musa 
Al-Mutasim, seeing that his friend, the governor, was 
deeply in conversation with a village girl who had ap¬ 
proached the caravan offering fruit and milk for sale, 
slipped over to the side of the Baluchi guide and, as 
before, showed him his bulging purse. 

Came a whispered conversation, the Arab’s hand 
bending to the other’s with a pleasant tinkle of gold, 
and, not long afterwards, the Baluchi approaching Mr. 
Warburton and remarking humbly that he was the 


[THE MATING OF THE BLADES 213 

saheNs slave, and that the saheb was the light of his 
countenance and the stone of his everlasting content¬ 
ment. 

Mr. Warburton was familiar with certain phases 
of the Orient. 

“Let’s take all that for granted,” he replied, 
brutally. “How much are you going to overcharge 
me?” 

Nureddin Zaid, the Baluchi, looked at the American 
reproachfully. 

“Saheb,” he said, “this is not a question of money. 
It is a question of my affection and loyalty to you.” 

“Yes?” Mr. Warburton looked up, surprised, a 
little suspicious. 

“Yes. You have been kind and generous. So has 
the little mem-saheb”—^pointing at Jane who, well out 
of hearing, was amusedly watching Abderrahman 
Yahiah Khan’s flirtatious conversation with the village 
girl. “And thus I would like to repay you, saheb!” 

And he talked long and earnestly to Mr. Warburton, 
with the result that the latter, a few minutes after¬ 
wards, told his daughter that she would stay here, at 
the village outside the city walls, under the protection 
of half-a-dozen soldiers, until he sent for her. 

“I want to go with you, dad.” 

“No, Jane. It isn’t safe. Nureddin Zaid told me 
that the prime minister of Tamerlanistan, the chap 
they call A 1 Nakia is . . . oh . . he coughed. 

“A Don Juan?” she laughed. “Why, dad, I can 
take care of myself. I’ve played around New York 
and Paris and London, you know.” 

“But this is the Orient, my dear, and things are 


214 lTHE mating of the blades 

different. Nureddin Zaid told me you’d be perfectly 
safe the moment A 1 Nakia gives me his solemn oath 
—but not before. So, my dear, I’d much rather you 
stay here—wonit you please?” 

Thus the mild and meek American parent whose 
words, when he talked to men of millions on Wall 
Street or on the Stock Exchange, popped sharp and 
dry like machine-gun bullets; and Jane smiled. 

“Certainly, dad,” she said. “I don’t want to worry 
you.” 

“Thanks, my dear. I’ll send for you just as soon 
as A 1 Nakia promises me.” 

A few hours later, Abderrahman Yahiah Khan and 
“The Basin,” whom the Tamerlani officials at the 
eastern gate had passed in without question as evi¬ 
dently belonging to the saheb’s retinue, had disap¬ 
peared in the packed, greasy wilderness of houses that 
ran from the Bazaar of the Mutton Butchers to the 
Ghulan River where stood the dead Ameer’s mau¬ 
soleum, while Mr. Warburton^ whose Baluchi guide 
had left the moment he had been paid his wages and 
a handsome bakshish in appreciation of his loyal 
warning about A 1 Nakia, was sitting on a rickety, 
three-legged chair in the chapar-khanah, the official 
rest house for distinguished travelers, trying to con¬ 
vince a bored, bearded major-domo by sign language 
that goat stewed in honey and spiced with asafoetida, 
badly cooked brinjal, unripe melons, underdone bread, 
and luke-warm licorice water were not the right sort 
of diet for a dyspeptic stomach. 

Finally he gave up in despair, and contented him- 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 215 

self with a simple repast consisting of a glass of milk 
and a fat, black cigar, and sat down on the open 
veranda, watching the scene outside on the market¬ 
place: the low line of shops overflowing with vege¬ 
tables, grains, cloths, slippers, ropes, household 
utensils, brasses, ^nd whatever else measured the 
scale of the natives* modest wants; a dozen or so 
desert men squatting around little fagots of brush¬ 
wood spread on the ground, and beyond them the 
gaunt, sneering, huddled shapes of their dromedaries; 
a butcheFs shop, his fly-blown stock-in-trade of beef 
and mutton quarters hanging from the limbs of a 
dead tree; turbaned and fur-capped people of every 
tint and costume, picturesque and swaggering alike in 
their bright silks and their worn, tattered rags, all 
haggling, laughing, babbling, shouting, all typical of 
Asia, that most disconcerting continent—disconcert¬ 
ing, that is, to professional Occidental psychologists— 
which, somehow, blends an ancient wisdom with an 
eternal, perversely childlike simplicity of soul. 

There he sat and watched, slightly homesick, 
slightly discouraged, not with the eventual success of 
his enterprise, but with the brooding thought that suc¬ 
cess in Asia meant nothing after all; for, even sup¬ 
pose he was granted his ‘‘concession,** developed the 
western province, reaped a benefit for himself and his 
backers, and increased the standard of living of the 
natives . . . what then? Asia was too big, too big 
to grasp even mentally, and a local success . . . why, 
it was like shooting at an elephant with a pea-shooter I 

And so he thought, while he waited for the return 
of the messenger whom he had sent to the Babu 


2i6 the mating of THE BLADES 


Chandra, local agent of the Cable Company and his 
own more or less trusted representative, with word 
that he was in town and wished to see him at 
once. 

The Babu came not long afterwards, coquettish as 
to attire, with his patent leather pumps and open-work 
silk socks, his gaudy umbrella and the freshly var¬ 
nished, crimson caste mark on his low forehead, his 
sagging lips bubbling florid, frothy greetings, pro¬ 
testations of undying loyalty, mendacious statements 
that he, his wife, his mother, and his cow were dying 
of starvation, and complaints against the Babu Bansi 
and Mr. Preserved Higgins, whose ancestors, it ap¬ 
peared, had been born noseless and devoid of shame 
for untold generations ... a stream of words cut 
short by Mr. Ezra Warburton's “All right. Let’s 
take all that for granted.” 

“But—Higgins saheb is making mischief in the 
West. He is . . .” 

“That’s why I am here. I want an audience as 
soon as possible with that—what’s his name—^the 
fellow who seems to be ace high here . . .” 

“A1 Nakia?” 

“Yes. I want to see him, right away. Can you 
fix it up ?” 

“Yes, Heaven-Born.*’ 

“When?” 

“At once. At least—^this afternoon. About two 
hours from now he receives in open durbar, saheb.” 

“Good. You’d better come along and play inter¬ 
preter, Bansi.” 

At which the Babu smiled. 


;THE MATING OF THE BLADES 217 

‘‘Heaven-Born/’ he said, '‘Al Nakia speaks Eng¬ 
lish/’ 

‘‘Educated abroad, I guess ?” 

“No. He is a saheb, like yourself!” 

Even so two hours later—two hours pregnant with 
motley happenings, with the clash of swords, the cries 
of dying men, the lust of a Tamerlani, and the greed 
of an Arab—Mr. Ezra Warburton was utterly sur¬ 
prised when, ushered into the presence of A 1 Nakia, 
he discovered that the latter was Hector Wade. 

And the surprise was mutual. Too, it was typical 
of American and Briton. 

“Til be jiggered!” exclaimed the former. 

“How d’ye do?” said the latter, extending a limp 
and gawkish hand. 

Came an embarrassed silence, until finally the 
financier, with the abrupt directness of his nation, de¬ 
cided that the past was the past and, as such, must be 
left to take care of itself; that, whatever the truth or 
untruth as to the disgraceful card scandal which had 
banished Hector Wade from the society of decent 
people, and whatever the methods through which he 
had reached his present eminent position, that position 
itself was a fact—and he was here on business. 

Business! The sacred Grail of his life! 

And business he would talk, and did talk. 

“About those land development concessions,” he be¬ 
gan. “I guess I can make you a pretty fair offer— 
an offer you won’t be able to refuse.” 

He went on to say that he knew about the rebellion 
which had broken out in the western marches and 


2i8 the mating of THE BLADES 


about Mr. Preserved Higgins^ part in it, but that he 
himself . . . 

‘Well, Mr. Wade, you know that I’ve quite a little 
pull with the British government. What you need 
is rifles and ammunition and supplies, and I’ll make 
it my affair to see that you get them. On the other 
hand—well—I am a business man, not an altruist, and 
so . . . 

And he talked on, outlining his plan. 

But Hector was hardly listening. Loverlike, he 
saw in Mr. Warburton’s gray, ascetic features a 
shadowy and sentimental resemblance to a little oval 
of a face, crowned by a mass of hair that was like 
curled sunlight; he wondered about Jane, and, with 
single-minded, self-centered English tactlessness, he 
voiced his wonder the next moment, cutting through 
Mr. Warburton’s intricate sentence, which was filled 
to the brim with rates of interest and difflculties of 
transportation and unearned increment and sinking 
fund and similar financial details. 

“How is your daughter, Mr. Warburton?” 

And, suddenly, Mr. Warburton smiled. 

It was not that he had forgotten about Jane. He 
couldn’t very well, for her personality was too femi¬ 
ninely insistent. But, momentarily, her picture had be¬ 
come rather blurred in the mazes of dollars and cents. 

So he smiled, just a little guiltil^. 

“The joke is on me,” he said. “That infernal 
Baluchi guide of mine told me that you were—oh—all 
sorts of a gay and festive dog.” 

Hector flared up. 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 219 


‘T . . . what?’’ 

‘T had no idea you were Hector Wade. I thought 
you were some Oriental Don Juan. That’s what my 
Baluchi told me. Told me—oh, well—that a girl 
wasn’t safe with you unless she was accompanied by 
half-a-dozen chaperons armed to the teeth, and so he 
persuaded me to leave Jane in a little village oasis— 
the last, one the other side of the eastern gate.” 

“What did he do that for?” Hector was puzzled, 
faintly uneasy. 

“Oh—just to work me for a tip, I suppose. And 
he worked me all right. That final bakshish I gave 
him is going to make history in Central Asia.” 

And he laughed again. For he was a shrewd busi¬ 
ness man who believed in the rhythmic law of human 
equation, the personal element, and as frequently, in 
New York and London, he had discovered that the 
roseate geniality due to a dry Martini, a lavish dis¬ 
play of ambiguous hors d'oeuvres, ornamental ices in 
frilled pink papers, and the right sort of coffee and 
liqueur, were of valuable help in directing a man’s 
judgment and fountain pen; thus the flash of Jane’s 
dark eyes through the center of this prosy business 
discussion might help in influencing the young Eng¬ 
lishman. 

“I’ll send for her as soon as we’re through with 
our little talk,” he said. “She’ll be all right at the 
village, in the meantime.” 

“I suppose so,” said Hector, still with that same 
faint uneasiness; and once more the financier launched 
forth upon the roaming, treacherous sea of dollars 
and cents which he knew so well how to navigate. 


220 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


“As to those land concessions/’ he began again, 
“my proposition is fair and square . . /' 

Hector Wade jerked himself back into the reality 
of things. 

“Mr. Warburton,” he said, “I do not doubt it in 
the least. Fair and square. Of course. But only 
fair and square according to the limits of your under¬ 
standing !” 

“The—limits of my ... ?” Mr. Warburton stam¬ 
mered. An angry red flushed his lean cheeks. He 
did not like to have his probity impugned, even in a 
roundabout way; and it was that which the other was 
evidently trying to do. 

“According to the limits of your understanding— 
exactly!” Hector went on. “But not according to 
the understanding of Asia.” 

“Is this an ethical discussion or a business dis¬ 
cussion?” demanded the financier with a faint 
sneer. 

“Both—as it ought to be. You see, your ideas on 
progress and happiness . . .” 

“Interchangeable terms!” 

“So you say! Your ideas and those of the Orient 
do not happen to dovetail. You say that money, and 
the progress which money buys, is happiness; and the 
Orient replies that poverty can often be a far greater 
happiness—if poverty brings contentment.” 

“Poverty—brings—contentment ?” Here was a 
revolutionary theory which nettled the financier. 

“Poverty from your point of view,” smiled Hector, 
“and not from the point of view of the Orient. My 
Tamerlanis”—and he dwelt just a little on the “my” 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 221 


—‘'are rich —and happy—when they have three square 
meals a day, a handful of brittle Latakia tobacco 
leaves and ...” 

“But you are a European!” interrupted Mr. War- 
burton. “You are an Englishman, the descendant of 
a nation of shopkeepers.” 

“Yes. But I am also the regent of this country. 
And I have not been here very long. Perhaps a meas¬ 
ure of development may do Tamerlanistan a whole 
lot of good. I don’t know—^yet.” 

“I can prove to you that . . .” 

“You can prove to me exactly nothing—at least 
about Tamerlanistan. I must learn by myself, and 
I am rather slow. I take one step at a time, and my 
present step is over yonder”—^he pointed west, through 
the window where brilliant wedges of sunlight misted 
the town with golden gauze. “I must pacify the 
border province. Nothing else counts.” 

“Right there I can help you. I tell you I have a 
great deal of pull with the British-Indian govern¬ 
ment.” 

“Oh, yes. You told m.e. Rifles and bullets and all 
that sort of thing. But I fancy I shan’t need them. 
I have rather a different plan. Anyway, there’ll be 
no talk of concessions until either I know more about 
Tamerlanistan than I do know, or until the former 
prime minister, Hajji Akhbar Khan, returns from 
abroad. He and the late Ameer had certain ideas 
about these concessions.” 

“I remember,” said Mr. Warburton, with rather a 
grim smile. “They wouldn’t even listen to the propo¬ 
sitions I made them through the Babu Chandra— 


. 222 JBE MATING OF THE BLADES 


‘‘And perhaps they were right. From all I hear 
about Hajji Akhbar Khan . . 

And then, with utter, dramatic suddenness, the 
name of the Hajji was echoed by a shrill voice that 
drifted through the curtains which separated the 
audience hall from the women^s quarter. 

“Hajji Akhbar Khan—didst thou say?” It was the 
old nurse's screaming voice. “And dost thou mean to 
tell me that the princess—that little, little fool of a 
princess—went there, without telling me ? Why didst 
thou not tell me, O daughter of a noseless she-camel?” 

The next moment she burst into the audience hall, 
like a miniature whirlwind of passion, her wizened, 
berry-brown features distorted with rage and grief, 
dragging after her a weeping slave girl whom she 
cuffed and kicked as a sort of accompaniment to the 
tale which she poured into Hector's ear. 

**Zid! Zid! —Hurry! Hurry!” she wound up, and 
Hector, pale, slightly trembling, turned to the Ameri¬ 
can. 

“Pardon my abruptness,” he said, “I haye to 

go . . 

“Has anything happened? Can I help you?” 

“I don't know. No time to explain. Awfully sorry 

And he picked up the ancient Oriental blade from a 
low taboret and ran out of the audience hall and into 
the outer court. 

A splendid stallion was there, champing at his bit, 
saddled, gayly caparisoned, belonging to some courtier 
who had come for audience. 

Hector threw his leg across the saddle, and was off 


[THE MATING OF THE BLADES 223 

at a gallop, while the old nurse looked after him, 
trembling, crying . . . and presently turned again to 
the slave girl. 

'Why didst thou not tell me, daughter of a wart?” 

‘T couldn't—the princess never thought that the 
Hajji wasn’t . . 

"She has less sense even than thou! A husband— 
that is what she needs! A husband who beats her— 
but not too much—or may Allah help him!” she 
wound up in a disconcerting mingling of defiance and 
gentleness. 

"What has happened?” Mr. Warburton asked Babu 
Chandra, who had come into the audience hall, fully 
as excited as the nurse had been. 

"The Princess Aziza Nurmahal fell into a trap. 
And so—so did . . 

"Who?” 

"Your daughter, Heaven-Bom!” 

And, like the nurse, he told a jerking, hysterical 
tale, at the end of which the financier, even as Hector 
had done, rushed out of the palace, into the outer 
court, and mounted the first horse he saw. 

And off and away, toward the eastern gate, toward 
the open country that rose slowly, gradually, to a far 
horizon of soft curves and blue vapors, slashed with 
silver and nicked with livid purple, while Hector was 
urging his stallion toward the West, where the 
Ghulan River laid a shining ribbon across the town’s 
straggling suburbs, and where the turrets and bulbous 
domes of the dead Ameer’s mausoleum swept to the^ 
sky in a stony abandon. 


CHAPTER XV 


In which Hector breaks the seal of the ancient prophecy 
and finds that blood is thicker than water, thicker than the 
clogging, stinking dust of the centuries. 

Yet, going back to the old nurse’s vituperations and 
tears and frantic appeals to Allah, the Prophet, and a 
variety of Moslem saints that reverberated through 
the Gengizkhani palace from turret to cellar, causing 
the eunuchs to touch their blue beads as a protection 
against evil, and the servants huddled over the cook 
pots to cringe as if expecting a beating, it was per¬ 
haps natural enough that the princess, in a moment 
of exuberant joy, should have obeyed the strange 
summons without suspecting a trap. 

For, after all, a high-caste Oriental girl is in every¬ 
thing except a frank knowledge and discussion of sex 
questions and a certain familiarity with the tortuous 
mazes of palace politics, very much like a European 
or American girl hedged in by the gently nefarious 
and nefariously gentle, inhibiting social regulations 
that are the result of the Mid-Victorian inheritance of 
cant—the world, to both the former and the latter, 
offering nothing to do except a rather functionless 
existence varied by calls, genteel literature, genteel 
athletics, and genteel dusting. 

In the case of the European girl, it is the parent 
who does the step-by-step supervising, while in that 
224 



THE MATING OF THE BLADES 225 


of Aziza Nurmahal it was the old nurse who ruled, 
socially, for all her menial position. 

Thus the little princess was unprepared to cope 
with the unexpected—such as the strange summons. 

A summons—by the lips of a rough, fur-capped 
Afghan charpadar who had bullied his way past the 
sentinels, through outer and inner courtyard, up the 
stairs, and into the ante-room of the harem where he 
had startled a pert-eyed, golden-skinned slave girl into 
attention by methods peculiar; methods that combined 
bribery, flattery, brutality, and open, rather riotous 
love-making. 

*Tell the princess that / am here!’' he had said, 
with a lordly air. 

“Thou?” The girl had made a mocking salaam. 
“And who then art thou? Art thou the Ameer of 
Bokhara? The Amban of Kashgar? The Rajah of 
Karpathala? Or perhaps His Majesty the yellow 
Emperor of far China himself?” 

He had flipped a coin into her ready hand. 

“One thing I would like to be,” he had replied, star¬ 
ing at her out of his bold eyes until she had blushed, 
“and one thing l am!” 

“Yes?” 

“Indeed, O Small Bud to be worn in the Turban 
of my Heart! For I would like to be thy lover! I 
would like to crush thy lips with mine. I would like 
to hold thy soft, trembling body with the impatient 
strength of my arms. But—by the scarlet pig’s 
bristles!—it is only the vain wind of desire tickling 
my nostrils and shortening my breath. For thou art 


226 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


a perfumed jewel, palace born, palace bred, palace 
spoiled. The longing in thy downy heart is for a silk 
clad, jessamine scented courtier, while I”—and he had 
had the unblushing effrontery to simulate a melancholy 
sigh—“am only a rough Afghan, a Soleymani of 
Soleymanis!” 

“What then dost thou want with the princess—^be¬ 
ing only an Afghan ?” 

“News—I bring her! Splendid news! Happy 
news! Joyful news! News slashed with sun gold 
and nicked with the moon^s silver glitter! News that 
will cause her to fill thy lap and mine with seventeen 
camels' loads of red Persian gold! But —the mes¬ 
sage is secret, Rejoicer of Souls! There must be no 
blabbing to that dried-up and malodorous goat udder 
of an Ayesha Zemzem, nor to that cousin of a dung 
heap who calls himself A 1 Nakia, nor to any leaky 
palace tongue. These be news only for the princess' 
rosy ears!" 

“But—consider the laws of the harem . . 

“Consider the pimples on the back of a cockroach! 
Laws! Do not quote laws to an Afghan. To do so 
would be like reciting the Koran to the buffalo about 
to gore thee. Away with thee, O Small, Soft Thing" 
—pinching her cheeks—-“and call thy mistress!" 

The slave girl had left, to return, a few minutes 
later, with the princess who, at the Afghan's first 
words, spoken in a very low voice, had burst into a 
shout of joy, and a quick exclamation of: 

“The Haj—" as quickly stopped by the man's warn¬ 
ing hiss: 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 22^, 

“No, no, Heaven-Bom! Be careful!” 

And he had whispered to her at length, winding up 
with “I do not know his reasons. I am his servant. 
I listen and I obey. And so I gave thee the message 
he gave me. Come with me—at once—Heaven- 
Bom!” 

Just for a moment the princess had hesitated. 

“I—I can’t go alone with thee,” she had said, but 
with a light in her eyes, as if she would like to be per¬ 
suaded that she could. 

“Why not?” 

“It is against the customs . . 

“Of the harem! Of course!” 

The man had laughed ironically, had gmmbled, 
then, with a shrug of his shoulders, had continued: 

“It is against my orders. But thou art the Princess 
Aziza Nurmahal, the ruler of this land, and, if thou 
dost insist, take a servant along—one servant—^per¬ 
haps this little slave girl?” 

“No. I shall take my chief eunuch!” 

“Good. That should be enough to guard even as 
lacy and twisted a thing as Tamerlani propriety and 
Tamerlani etiquette. But—^thou must hurry. Why? 
Who am I to know, Heaven-Born? I am only a 
rough Afghan executing the orders he gave me. 
Come—and tell that little ball of quivering, soft noth¬ 
ings over there”—indicating the slave girl who was 
trying to catch a word now and then—-“to be silent 
about the whole affair—silent as the sands.” 

The princess had spoken to the slave, enjoining her 
to secrecy, had left, and had returned, shortly after¬ 
wards, veiled from head to foot in a swathing,^ di$- 


228 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


figuring black horsehair ferauj, and accompanied by 
Mahsud Hakki, the chief eunuch to whom she had 
evidently confided the story of the mysterious sum¬ 
mons; for the Nubian was laughing with a great flash 
of even, white teeth and waving a plum-colored paw 
at the Afghan in hearty greeting. 

‘^Many, many moons have I longed for the sight 
of the Hajji Akh—” 

‘^Silence, babbler!'^ had come the Afghan’s rough, 
angry interruption. “Walls have ears—and so have” 
—he had walked up to the slave girl and had shaken 
her—“so have little, soft, downy things! Little, soft, 
downy things that will have their ears cut off if they 
babble and blab!” 

Then all three had left, leaving the harem by a 
back stairway that led to the kitchen and was hardly 
ever used this time of the day, down to a small, walled 
garden heavy with the acrid scent of marigold and the 
pungent sweetness of red jessamine, thence by an 
underground passage known only to a few that, run¬ 
ning for nearly a mile, opened, through a grass 
covered, intricate trap door, into a curious congeries 
of houses not far from the Ghulan River, within sight 
of the dead Ameer’s mausoleum—the combined Hell’s 
Kitchen, Rue de Venise, and Pimlico of the capital, 
the hiding-place of those who were in distress, and in 
debt, and in trouble of every kind; ‘ a place where 
brawling and bibbing of forbidden spirits and murder 
were the order of the day; where vice ran freely in 
and out of a dozen painted doors, where the pungent 
fumes of the Black Smoke rose nightly in morose 
spirals, where recklessness dwelt side by side with 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 229 

shame, and shame with disease . . . the slums of 
Tamerlanistan—the mildewed spot in the healthy plant 
of the town. 

Thus Afghan, eunuch, and princess had left the 
sheltered security of the palace, the latter’s heart beat¬ 
ing like the heart of a girl in finishing school who, 
for the first time in her life, unchaperoned, unbeknown 
to parents and teachers, goes to a matinee with a mem¬ 
ber of the male sex; while the little slave girl had 
looked after them in a mixture of curiosity and 
trepidation, but obeying the injunction of silence and 
secrecy which Aziza Nurmahal had put upon ner. 

The little slave girl had been rather prey to con¬ 
flicting emotions. For she had overheard some of the 
Afghan charpada/s words, and less hedged in by in¬ 
hibiting conventions, had been conscious of a faint, 
marring taint of treachery in the Afghan’s hearty 
words and jovial manner. But she feared the prin¬ 
cess’ quick tongue—just a shade less than she feared 
the old nurse’s quick hand. 

So she had waited, nervously expectant, wishing 
for the princess’ return; and then, two hours later, 
excited sounds had come from the palace courtyard, 
cries, and a question peaking out from the turmoil: 

‘'Mahsud! Mahsud Hakki! What has happened^— 
for the love of Allah ?” 

And Ayesha Zemzem, who had been peacefully doz¬ 
ing over a soothing pipe of yellow Latakia tobacco 
cut with dawamesk-hashish, had jumped up, im¬ 
mediately wide-awake as is the habit of old people, 
had rushed down the stairs, out to the courtyard, and 


230 (THE MATING OF THE BLADES 

had found there, supported by half-a-dozen soldiers 
and servants, the moaning, blood-covered figure of the 
chief eunuch. 

He had died even as Ayesha Zemzem reached his 
side; had died, ’with the words on his frothing lips: 

Aziza Nurmahal—the mausoleum—the Afghan—^ 
Hajji Akhbar Khan . . 

And, with a choked rattling noise in his throat, he 
had sunk on the ground, one hand flung across his 
lacerated face as if to ward off Fate. 

‘‘Aziza Nurmahal? Hajji Akhbar Khan? The 
Afghan —what Afghan? What is all this blabbing 
and gabbing?” the old nurse had demanded, looking 
down at the dead man as if she wanted to shake the 
answer from his limp body; and, more gently: 

“Who murdered thee, faithful old friend?! 
Who ...” 

She had interrupted herself, had turned to the 
tense, startled crowd of servants and soldiers and 
courtiers, taking charge of the situation as usual. 

“Where is the princess?” she had continued. “Go 
—somebody—and fetch her. Perhaps she has the 
key to this pukka devil's mystery!” 

It was then that Kumar Zaida, the little slave girl 
who had joined the group, had decided that she must 
tell what she knew; and she had told about the rough 
Afghan charpadar, how he had come with a mys¬ 
terious message for the princess, how he had whis¬ 
pered to her, how she herself had not been able to 
understand every word, but, judging from scraps of 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 231 


talk here and there, believed that the Afghan had 
come as a messenger from Hajji Akhbar Khan, 
Itizad el-Dowleh, returned from the far places who, 
it seemed, was awaiting the princess in the mausoleum 
of the late Ameer, by the banks of/the Ghulan River. 

“Allah !’* Ayesha Zemzem had exclaimed. “A 
clumsy trap! There is nothing near that part of the 
river banks except desolation! A trap fit for idiots 
and unthinking children! And, dost thou mean to 
say, Kumar Zaida, that thou ... ?” 

“Who was I to argue?’’ the slave girl had defended 
herself. “The princess ordered me to be silent. The 
Afghan, too, said it was important that nobody knew 
about the message or the going. Maybe”—bold and 
arrogant since she knew that she would get a beating 
whatever happened—“maybe they did not trust thee, 
old woman . . .” 

But her last words had been swallowed in the 
nurse’s furious, high-pitched demand: 

“Why didst thou not come to me, fool? Why 
didst thou not tell me, O daughter of a mangy and 
very unbeautiful she-pig?” 

Flopp !—her bony old hand descended on the girl’s 
bare shoulder; and then came the scene which so 
boisterously interrupted the prosy business discussion 
between Hector Wade and Mr. Ezra Warburton, the 
former dashing off at a thundering gallop, and Ayesha 
Zemzem raging through the palace like a miniature 
whirlwind of fury . . . fury suddenly scotched, as she 
entered the princess’ apartment and, looking about 
her, discovered that the ancient, straight-bladed sword 


t 

232 THE MATING OF JHE BLADES 

was not in its accustomed place, nor anywhere else, 
though she searched the rooms thoroughly. 

The ancient sword which had been across the dead 
Ameer’s knees during the funeral procession! 

The sword with which Aziza Nurmahal had en¬ 
forced her will when Koom Khan had spoken mu¬ 
tinous words! 

The sword which, according to the tradition of the 
Gengizkhani family, would mate with the other blade, 
the one which Hector Wade had found in the lumber 
room of Dealle Castle and which had been the cause 
of all his twisted, motley adventures I 

The sword with which even at that moment Aziza 
Nurmahal was defending herself, stabbing and cutting 
until her slim arms ached and her breath came in 
short, staccato bursts, while the Afghan charpadar, 
who, with a great, bellowing laugh, had declared him¬ 
self to be Abderrahman Yahiah Khan, governor of 
the western marches—''and soon thy husband, little 
princess, soon the father of thy sons, soon Ameer of 
Tamerlanistan I”—kept dancing away from her, catch¬ 
ing blows and thrusts on his metal-bossed arm shield, 
without using his own weapon. 

"For I do not wish to injure thee, O Moon of 
Delight! And soon thou wilt be tired with this danc¬ 
ing about and unwomanly wielding of steel. And 
then I shall gather thee in my arms and carry thee 
away, and— ahee !—^but thou shalt find my love strong 
and I thine sweet!” 

Abderrahman Yahiah Khan had no thought for 
Mahsud Hakki, the eunuch, whom he had cut down as 
soon as they had entered the mausoleum. The man 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 233 

had crawled away, mortally injured, doubtless to 
bleed to death somewhere by the deserted river bank. 

And the princess fought on, frightened, in despair, 
but resolved with all the stubbornness of the Gengiz- 
khani blood to die rather than submit, the point of 
her sword dancing in ever weakening circles, while, 
back in the palace, the old nurse raised lean arms to 
heaven. 

‘^By Allah and by Allah!’' the nurse exclaimed. 
“The little princess has more sense than I thought! 
Enough sense, at least, to have taken along the Luck 
of the Gengizkhani—and if A 1 Nakia reaches there in 
time, both ancient blades will sing the song of blood 
together. Wooing indeed! Mating indeed! As 
swords and men and women should mate—in battle! 
Perhaps”—she whispered—“perhaps it is not too 
late ...” 

And she sank on her knees, facing Mecca, and cried 
as if her heart would break, and prayed, fervently: 

“Against the night when it overtaketh me, and 
against the black lust of the wicked and the bad, I 
betake me for refuge to Allah, the Lord of Daybreak! 
O Allah, speed Thou A 1 Nakia’s horse! O Allah, 
listen Thou to the prayer of this foolish old woman! 
O Allah, do Thou protect and save the little princess 
who is to me like the light of a friendly house in the 
screaming night of storms—who is the cradle of my 
soul—who is the inner jewel in the shrine of my 
withered heart!” 

Thus the prayer on Ayesha Zemzem’s lips; and a 
prayer, too, was in the heart of Hector Wade as he 


234 the mating of THE BLADES 

rode through the streets of the town, scattering the 
haggling market throngs, driving some into doorways 
and coffee houses and mosques, causing others to snap 
their fingers rapidly to ward off evil spirits; for, as¬ 
suredly, A 1 Nakia had lost the light of his reason. 
He, the strong, the gentle, the just, to graze a little 
playing child in the fury of his gallop, causing it to 
cry and sob and run, frightened, to its mother—^he, 
the sober, the sane, the patient, to leap his horse 
across a lumbering ox cart that was not quick enough 
to get out of his way! 

“By the Prophet 1 ” said an old market woman, pity¬ 
ingly, “the stars in his soul have turned black I Mad¬ 
ness .is upon him 1” 

And, superstitiously, she touched the little blue- 
enameled “hand of AH’* she wore in her flat bosom, 
while Hector thundered on, twisting and turning 
through the twisting, turning streets, toward the 
baroque mass of the mausoleum that loomed up in 
the distance. On!—though his horse was ready to 
give up, its head bowed on its heaving, lathering chest, 
the lungs pumping the hot air painfully with a deep, 
rattling noise. 

But he bent over the animal’s neck, lifting it with 
every stride. 

They stared after him, the men of Tamerlanistan, 
some angry, some mocking, some astonished; then, 
presently, as the tale of the trap into which Aziza 
Nurmahal had fallen drifted out of the palace on 
the servants* babbling lips and was repeated from 
mouth to mouth, in bazaar and mosque and cara- 
yanserai, there were expressions of sympathy and pity; 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 235 

and there was more than one, peasant and noble, 
merchant and green-turbaned, wide-stepping shareef, 
who threw leg across saddle and was off after A 1 
Nakia’s flying figure to help. 

But they did not catch up with him, who was rid¬ 
ing as he had never ridden before, his left hand twisted 
in the horse’s braided mane after the rein had broken 
under the strain and the surcingle was beginning to 
split, sliding the huge saddle to a dangerous angle. 

On!—^past bazaar and mosque and scarlet-flaming 
garden, with the gray dust swirling up in spirals, and 
doorways and posterns echoing the click-click-click- 
etty-click of the horse’s feet; straight through a kafila 
of shaggy, northern dromedaries dragging along their 
loads over the cobble-stoned pavement, scattering on 
the market-place a desert man’s impromptu camp fire, 
frightening the tiny donkeys that tripped under their 
burdens of charcoal and fiery-colored vegetables and 
onyx-eyed Persian pussy cats, pirouetting dangerously 
amongst the two-wheeled country carts that cluttered 
the souk! 

Off and away!—kicking loose his feet from his 
stirrups and letting the saddle drop to the ground from 
underneath him, as girth and surcingle burst com¬ 
pletely, jerking the horse to one side so that its frantic 
feet did not strike the saddle’s horn nor become en¬ 
tangled in the leathers, and riding the animal bare- 
back, sitting tight and hard on the high-peaked withers. 

The ancient Oriental blade was in his hand as he 
jumped from the horse and rushed tiirough the open 
door of the mausoleum. 


236 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 

‘‘Aziza! Aziza NurmahalT’ 

His call echoed through the vaulted, white-stuccoed j 
halls where slept the princess’ ancestors, from the j 
rough shepherd who, followed by a few thousand j 
yellow-skinned, high-cheeked men on horseback, had j 
swept out of Central Asia, conquering the world from 
Pekin to the gates of Berlin, to the last male member ' 
of the Gengizkhani clan, the princess’ father, who had 
spent a life-time sidestepping the financial traps, the 
“concessions,” of these same Occidentals whom once 
his ancestors had subjugated and ruled with rope and 
flame and scimitar. 

The ironic thought flashed through Hector’s mind 
even as, from an inner chamber, came an answering 
call: 

“Thank Allah!” 

Then hysterical laughter; a man’s acrid curse; a 
clanking of steel against steel—and Hector reached 
the chamber whence the cry had come, took in the 
scene at a glance—the girl, weakened, out of breath, 
but still pluckily defending herself against Abderrah- 
man Yahiah Khan—and he was at him, the point of 
his weapon dancing before him like a lambent flame. 

Up till this moment Abderrahman Yahiah Khan 
had been merely playing with the princess; had not 
wished to do her a bodily injury. Perhaps, now, sud¬ 
denly, his love for her—for love it was, though rough, 
boisterous, cruel—turned into the primitive desire of 
primitive man that she, who could not be his, should 
never belong to anybody else, chiefly not to this up¬ 
start of a saheb who, according to Koom Khan’s tale, 
had gained her love and was aspiring to the throne. 


[THE MATING OF THE BLADES 237 

Perhaps, thus, for a passing moment, he made up his 
mind to kill her. Heretofore, he had not used his 
sword, had only defended himself with his metal- 
bossed arm shield. 

Now he was about to draw . . . 

But, by this time. Hector's weapon was approaching 
him in dancing, narrowing circles, while the princess, 
regaining her flagging strength, was about to thrust 
in and under his skillfully handled shield. He heard 
the ominous crackle of steel from both sides, both 
blades flickered toward his heart like messengers of 
death, the hilt of his own sword, when he tried to 
draw, caught in the folds of his voluminous waist 
shawl; and so, suddenly, but serenely, he did what 
most Asiatics would have done under the circum¬ 
stances. 

Fight the inevitable? 

And what price was there in that, what pride, what 
logic? Was there price and pride and logic in one's 
own bleeding, mutilated corpse? Was there not far 
greater price and pride and logic in one's living body, 
though it be humbled through the stress of circum¬ 
stance—of force majeuref 

Why—outside, on th6 banks of the Ghulan River, 
the koil-birds were singing their throaty song of life 
and love; the little, green ceratrophys toads were 
sounding their basso notes; the very trees were alive 
with the breeze of spring, and the sky was blue and 
endless . . . Life, all around him! 

Why then choose death? 

Not he! 

And so, skillfully, suddenly, just as the blades met 


238 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 

above his head, he ducked, sat down quickly on the 
ground, kowtowed, and remarked, without the 
slightest taint of shame or self-consciousness: 

‘Tt appears that I am vanquished. I am thy slave, 
A 1 Nakia—and thine, Aziza Nurmahal!” 

With which he groped in his waist shawl, drew out 
a match and a sadly crumpled cigarette, lit it, and 
remarked, to nobody in particular, that even to the 
noblest of men kismet was always kismet, and that 
all came from Allah, the good as well as the evil. 

‘'Thus—let us not cavil at the evil! It would be 
blasphemy unspeakable 1” 

Hector dropped the point of his sword. He 
laughed, frankly, loudly. He could not help himself. 
The governor’s effrontery was too colossal. 

Then, again, as he looked at the princess, as he 
saw the delicate splendor of her face, the warm golden 
tint of her skin, the magnificent curve of breast and 
hip for all her slimness, the long, narrow, pleasurable 
hands, and the huge eyes which shone like star-sap¬ 
phires; as he saw her firm, red lips, those lips that 
held the eternal invitation of all womankind; together 
with a curious, rather impersonal kind of jealousy, 
since he did not love her, a great rage rose in his 
throat that the other should have thought of making 
her his. 

And again he raised his sword, to the little princess' 
encouraging shouts of “Kill him, A 1 Nakia! Kill 
him!” while Abderrahman Yahiah Khan sighed re¬ 
signedly, rather pathetically, with an expression in his 
eyes, his lips, the drooping of his shoulders which 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 239 

seemed to say that Hector was taking an unfair ad¬ 
vantage of him and that it was thus his right to feel 
hurt and abused. 

For be it remembered that he was an Oriental; not 
the type of Eastern potentate one sees so much in 
England and occasionally in New York, flashing the 
motley silk of his turban through the gray, stony 
thoroughfares of the West, a man spoilt in a way 
yet bred to the most delicate finesse of feelings and 
manners and emotions; but that he, Abderrahman 
Yahiah Khan, was an Oriental born and bred in the 
gutters of some reeking bazaar, who had lived the 
haphazard life of Eastern childhood with no lessons 
except those of his ancient race, the crooked, crowded 
streets, and once in a while a word of meaningless 
Koranic wisdom from the lips of some supercilious 
graybeard. When he had reached his twelfth year, 
manhood had come to him—sudden and a little cruel, 
as it comes to the children of Asia—and with it both 
the passions and the responsibilities of manhood. 
Hereafter he had had to make his own way—his own 
way compared to which that of a New York newsboy 
is a path of roses, since the West holds firm to that 
weakening philosophy called sympathy of which the 
East knows nothing and wants less—^through the 
strength of his brain and his body, every step on the 
ladder of success marked by the blood and sufferings 
of some one weaker than himself, until to-day he was 
what he was—shrewd, but callous; a man whose 
enthusiasm was without warmth, whose brutality with¬ 
out imagination, whose passion without delicacy, 
whose submission without shame. 


240 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


And, without shame, he looked up at A1 Nakia, and, 
using the Oriental metaphor which corresponds to the 
plain English advice not to make a fool of himself, 
he said: 

‘‘Al Nakia—remember: ‘He of great head becomes 
a king, he of great feet a shepherd!’ What wouldst 
thou gain by killing me? Once I am dead, thy ragq 
will be spent, and what profit then to thee, Heaven- 
Born? To kill means but a momentary revenge— 
and what gain is there in that?” 

“The gain that I know thee to be dead—^that never 
again thou wilt be able to make mischief I” 

“Better far to grant me life —and to trust me!” 

“Trust—thee?” Hector was utterly amazed. 

“I am shrewd, A1 Nakia.” 

“Granted,” said Hector, curious what was to come 
next. 

“I know this country, every inch of it, chiefly the 
western marches.” 

“Thou dost, assuredly.” 

“I have at my command my own troops, too, the. 
men of Musa Al-Mutasim.” 

“Precisely.” 

“I have a large store of rifles and ammunition.” 

“So Tve heard.” 

“Higgins saheb and the other saheb are at my head¬ 
quarters.” 

“Exactly!” rejoined Hector, who was getting im¬ 
patient. “Thou art a traitor, and now thou art in 
my hands, as powerless as a trapped jackal, and ...” 

“Heaven-Born! Heaven-Born!” exclaimed the 
governor, shaking a finger as he might at a recalcitrant 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 2*41; 

child. ‘Tf I were powerful and swore fealty to thee, 
thou wouldst be right in not trusting me. For, 
powerful, I would strive for yet more power, would 
try to usurp thy place—as I did in the past. But, 
shorn of my power, in thy hands, under the heel of 
thy mercy, thus deprived of everything except what 
thou wouldst grant me, I should be forced to be loyal 
to thee through self-defense 

'Took here,” began Hector who, in his honest 
British way, was more indignant at the man’s Jesuitic 
casuistry of reasoning than at his treachery. 

But the governor continued, very gently: 

"Grant me life, Heaven-Born, and I shall pay for 
it a thousand times over. For I love life and what 
life brings.” Here he winked, shamelessly, at the 
princess who. Oriental to the marrow, was beginning 
to admire, even respect, the man’s enormous, serene 
astuteness. "Grant me life, and then fortune will 
come to thy hand, unasked, like a courtezan—or a 
dog.” 

And it was racially, culturally typical of Aziza 
Nurmahal that she, who at first had been more intent 
upon the man’s instant death than Hector Wade, was 
also first to forget her hatred the moment she under¬ 
stood that he would be more valuable to her alive 
than dead—an instance of that Oriental immorality 
which, at times, turns out to be decidedly more con¬ 
structive and humane than the case-hardened prej¬ 
udices, virtues, and ethics of the moral-ridden Occi¬ 
dent. 

Seeing Hector hesitate, sh^ took charge of the 
situation. 


242 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


'T grant thee life, Abderrahman Yahiah Khan,’’ she 
said. ‘Tell me. How wilt thou pay for it?” 

“How ?” smiled the governor, rising; and, hereafter, 
he disregarded Hector completely, and addressed him¬ 
self directly to the princess. '‘Ahee! Thou art in¬ 
deed of the blood of the Gengizkhani, twin sister to 
the gray-wolf, and thou wilt appreciate my shrewdness 
—and my loyalty!” 

And he proceeded to sketch a naively brutal plan 
•by the help of which he would, in payment for his life 
“and a few minor things of which I shall talk pres¬ 
ently, when thy heart, O Aziza Nurmahal, is less 
bloated with evil and bitter thoughts against me,” 
change sides. He would turn over his military es¬ 
tablishment, including Musa Al-Mutasim’s choice gang 
of ruffians and the rifles and ammunition which Mr. 
Preserved Higgins had given him, to the Tamer- 
lanistan government, surrender the Cockney and the 
other saheb: 

“. . . to be severely dealt with as, by Allah, they 
deserve I And, henceforth, I shall become a law-abid¬ 
ing citizen and a stout pillar of the state. It will be 
easy. A word from me to my captains will be suf¬ 
ficient. As to Musa Al-Mutasim, it may be advisable 
to have his head cut off. Thus,” he added, piously, 
“shall we all be happy and contented and save much 
blood. And”—^he smiled, vulpinely—“Higgins saheb 
and the other saheb and perhaps Musa Al-Mutasim 
will pay, and then everything will be as Allah willeth.” 

“Good, good I” cried the princess, to whose eastern 
brain all this seemed supreme logic and wisdom; and 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 243 

even Hector, while not admitting the logic, had to 
admit the wisdom, and though at first he had been 
shocked at the enormous, serenely unblushing un¬ 
morality of the project, he understood that after all it 
would be the right thing to accept it. He saw that, 
automatically, it would spell the end of all turmoil and 
once more bring back to Tamerlanistan its old peace 
and prosperity. 

Therefore, when shortly afterwards a troop of 
Tamerlani soldiers and naibs drew rein at the mauso¬ 
leum and invaded the place, sword in hand, threaten¬ 
ing revenge against the treacherous governor of the 
western marches. Hector stepped between them and 
their intended victim, and asked them to take the 
man to the palace and to see that no harm came to 
him. 

‘^No harm indeed I” echoed the governor to his twin 
brother and worst enemy, the governor of the eastern 
marches, who was amongst the crowd and had already 
raised his short, wicked sword. '^Back to thy kennel, 
O dog, unbeautiful and decidedly objectionable, or I 
shall torture thee the torture of the boiling oil! For 
behold, O thou fetid hyena, I am in high favor with 
the princess and A 1 Nakia—^because of my wisdom, 
my courage, my clean manliness, and my shining 
loyalty 

And he strutted out with a considerable swagger, 
followed by the astonished Tamerlanis, while Hector 
Wade, laughing in spite of himself, turned quickly as 
he heard the princess’ whispered words: 

‘The blades! The ancient blades! The blade of 


244 the mating of THE BLADES 


the East and that of the West! Thy blade and mine, 
A 1 Nakia! The blades of the prophecy—which saved 
me—which saved Tamerlanistan 

And then, realizing that here for the first time since 
he had come to Tamerlanistan he was alone with the 
princess without hidden eyes and ears watching and 
listening from behind the rustling zenana curtains, that 
here for the first time he had a chance to ask her 
straight out for a solution of the mystery. Hector 
demanded, rather bluntly: 

‘Tell me, Aziza. What is all this mad talk of 
blades and the wooing of blades ? What is this 
ancient prophecy to which all the world seems to have 
the key except myself?’’ 

She looked up, utterly astonished. 

“Thou dost not know?” 

“I have guessed, a little. But—well—I don’t 
know.” 

“Then why didst thou come here ? Why didst thou 
sacrifice thy life, thy strength, thy energy, for this 
land, for me? If thou wert in love with me—which 
thou art not ...” 

“Which indeed I am not,” smiled Hector, “though 
I am thy friend.” 

“And I thine. The best friend in the world— 
friend closer than a brother . . .” 

“Rather!” said Hector to himself, thinking, bitterly, 
of his brother Tollemache, for whose sake he had 
taken on his shoulders the burden of dishonor; while 
the princess continued: 

“Yes. We are friends. But—even so—why didst 
thou come here in the first place? What, if thou 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES ^ 245’ 

Icnowest nothing of the prophecy of the swords, made 
thee leave thy own country? What made thee come 
to India, to the house in the Colootallah? And by 
what right hast thou this in thy possession?”—touch¬ 
ing the sword which rode at his hip. 

“By what, right hast thou the sword of the Gengiz- 
khani, the sword of my clan ?” Her eyes flashed fire. 
Her narrow hands opened and shut spasmodically. 
Her voice rose to a minatory treble, with that sudden, 
killing, unreasonable burst of tepiper which is the 
heritage of Arab blood. “I—I am thy friend! But 
if that which is whispered in the western marches is 
true—if, indeed, thou art an impostor, and not A 1 
Nakia, not the "Expected One^—^tlien I shall . . 

Hector cut through her words with a sharp gesture. 
He smiled, rather ruefully, and assured her that he 
had come into possession of the blade honestly 
enough, that it had been amongst the heirlooms of his 
family, and that, ever since he could remember, it had 
had a curious influence over him ... 

""As if this bit of steel had a soul!” Easily, nat¬ 
urally, unself-consciously, he expressed in Persian the 
things which inhibition of race and training would 
have made impossible for him in English. ""When I 
held the blade in my hand, even when I was a small 
boy, wings from the past, serene and gigantic and 
compelling, seemed to bear me toward an ancient 
destiny. It seemed as if the blade would cut through 
the tangled web of all my doubts and riddles and 
sorrows of life—would help me to recover something 
very precious which I had lost . . . something . . .” 

He interrupted himself. 


246 JHE MATING OF THE BLADES 


‘T am expressing myself crudely/’ he said. ‘T 
can’t tell what ...” 

'T understand!” Aziza Nurmahal slipped her hand 
into his. 'Thou art the 'Expected One!’ Tell me— 
everything!” 

And he told her how, according to the traditions 
of the Wades of Dealle, he had been forced to 
shoulder the guilt of his older brother, had left his 
father’s house taking nothing with him except the 
blade; and he went on until he came to the curious 
advertisement in the newspaper, the offer to buy 
swords at fair prices, and the even more curious 
figure of the old Oriental dealer in Coal Yard Street, 
off Drury Lane. 

"What did this old Oriental look like?” she asked; 
and Hector described him as well as he could, adding 
that he bore a curious resemblance to the Tamerlani 
merchant in Calcutta at whose house he had first met 
her. 

"Might have been his brother—they looked so much 
alike,” he wound up. 

"Indeed!” laughed the princess. "For they are 
brothers. The man to whom you took the blade is 
Hajji Akhbar Khan, Itisad el-Dowleh, my father’s 
most trusted friend, who went to the far places 

to . . .” 

"To do what?” 

"To hunt for the sword of the Gengizkhani. To 
find a descendant of that Englishman to whom once 
the sword was given, by my ancestor, centuries ago. 
To find thee, O A1 Nakia, O Truly Expected One. 
To prove the truth of the old prophecy, when it ap- 


tTHE MATING OF THE BLADES 24; 

peared that my father was on his death bed and the 
land would be left in my weak hands. To prove, too, 
that blood is thicker than the clogging dust of the 
centuries, and that Allah does not bring two human 
souls together in sport, to whiil them apart again as 
the sand storm whirls the yellow grains of the desert! 

‘The prophecy?” she went on. ‘The prophecy of 
the blades which thou dost not know in thy mind, 
but which thou knowest in thy soul ? Listen! Thou, 
who earnest out of the West, heeding the silent call 
which drew thee to the East—thine own East! For 
cousin thou art to me. Thou, too, hast Gengizkhani 
blood in thy veins, the blood of the ancient, undying 
race, and thou showest it in this—and that—and this 1” 
indicating his high cheek bones, his black, curly hair, 
his aquiline nose with the nervous, flaring nostrils 
which, according to Sussex tradition, had been the 
racial inheritance of some Spanish sailor shipwrecked 
on England’s white cliffs in the days of the Armada 
and Good Queen Bess. 

“Cousin to me!” she repeated, with a little lilt in 
her voice, like the lilt of an old, sweet song. 

And she told him how her own people, the 
Gengizkhani, the descendants of Genghiz Khan the 
Great on the male and of the Prophet Mohammed 
on the female side, had once ruled all Central Asia, 
from the Outer Mongolian snows to the scorched 
plains of Rajputana, from Anatolia to Chinese 
Turkestan, from the painted gates of Moscow to the 
ragged basalt frontier of Siam and Amoy; how they 
had fought hard to conquer, harder yet to hold their 


248 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


princely inheritance, and how amongst the many ad¬ 
venturers who left Europe for Asia in search of ex¬ 
citement and treasure, there had been a young 
Englishman. 

He became an officer in the army of the Gengizkhani 
Ameer, whose name was Jaffar Sirajud-din, finally 
rising to the rank of captain-general, but there were 
bitter words when he fell in love with the Ameer's 
youngest daughter, Khadijah Sultana. 

There was a fight, a duel; English blade against 
Tamerlani blade. The Ameer was vanquished and, 
prostrate on the ground, the point of the other’s 
weapon flickering above his heart, he agreed to the 
marriage. 

But, since Khadijah Sultana had been won in battle, 
instead of an exchange of rings, there was an ex¬ 
change of swords. 

Shortly after the birth of her little son, the princess 
died. The Englishman took the child, and returned 
to his native country; and the prophecy said that, be¬ 
fore he left, he swore a most solemn oath to the 
Ameer that whenever a Gengizkhani needed the sword 
of his English cousins, the latter must obey the 
summons. 

But, back here in the heart of Asia, in the course 
of the centuries, while they remembered the prophecy 
itself, the ancient prophecy which said that, in the 
Gengizkhani’s hour of need, a man would come out 
of the West, in his hand the blade of Jaffar Sirajud- 
din, they had forgotten the name of the Englishman 
and his family. All they had to link them with the 
past was the Englishman’s sword, the one with which 


(THE MATING OF THE BLADES 249 

he had vanquished the Ameer and conquered his bride, 
with its escutcheon engraved on the hilt, and a descrip¬ 
tion of the Gengizkhani sword which the foreigner 
had taken with him. 

When Aziza Nurmahal’s father was on his death¬ 
bed, Hajji Akhbar Khan, Itizad el-Dowleh, under¬ 
stood that there would be trouble with the Europeans 
begging and bribing and bullying for ''concessions,’’ 
with none left of the old clan except a young girl un¬ 
used to the intrigues of the palace, the mosques, and 
the bazaars, with the land sure to be torn by civil 
strife unless a strong man’s hand took the helm of 
the ship of state. 

Thus the Hajji had gone to the far places, to 
Europe, to England, on his mad search for the pos¬ 
sessor of the Gengizkhani blade. 

"And he found thee, A 1 Nakia!” the princess wound 
up. 

"Yes! He found me! And I found him. I 
found—all that—yonder!” 

He pointed to where, under the rays of the sun, the 
flat, white roofs of the capital poured to the dip 
of the river, while, farther east, a chain of hills rose 
in even tiers, sharp and terse, then softened marvel¬ 
ously until, in the farthest east, they curved inward 
like a bay of darkness, stretched out into a high table¬ 
land, and soared into two cube-shaped granite hills 
which looked like the pillars of a gigantic gate. 

The gate of this far Central Asian land which had 
called to him with the call of the blood! 

The call of the ancient centuries, the mysterious, 
atavistic energy which, more even than the sword of 


25Q [THE MATING OF THE BLADES 

the Gengizkhani, had driven him across the world! 

English out of Sussex he was. Yet this land, too, 
yvas his I [This land—^and its destinies! 

Instinctively, he had taken the princess’ hand. 
Now he dropped it, letting the softly clinging fingers 
slip from his own, as, clear through the other 
thoughts, cut a minor thought, disturbing, disconcert¬ 
ing. 

‘Why didn’t the Hajji explain the prophecy to 
me?” he asked. “Why did he let me go—oh—blind¬ 
folded?” 

The princess shook her head. 

“I don’t know, A 1 Nakia,” she replied. “But, 
doubtless, his reasons were good and wise. Whatever 
they were, they were just. For, always, has the lamp 
of his knowledge made clear the path from hearth¬ 
stone to byre. And to-day—see!—the prophecy of 
my clan has been fulfilled, all but ...” she smiled 
a little self-consciously, slurred and stopped. 

Hector, too, smiled—a frankly boyish smile. 

“Jhou meanest that about the—wooing of the 
swords?” 

“Yes.” 

“Too bad,” he rejoined, uncompromisingly Eng¬ 
lish for all his Persian phraseology. “Too bad that 
thy heart, Aziza Nurmahal, and mine are not hushed 
in the same sweet dream, that my heaven is not ful¬ 
filled in thy soul and body, nor thy heaven in mine.” 

“Then,” asked the princess, just a little mischie¬ 
vously, “thou lovest—somebody else?” 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 251 

*‘Yes,” replied Hector, thinking of Jane. 

‘‘And so do IT said the princess, thinking of the 
stranger who had stared at her, bold, unashamed, that 
day in the bazaar. 

And they sighed and looked at each other, rather 
like two sentimental children, unhappy, yet, somehow, 
more pleased than otherwise at their own unhappiness, 
and left the mausoleum; and they returned through 
the streets of the town, acclaimed by peasant and 
noble, by merchant and priest, ,back to the palace 
whose turrets and domes burned under the rays of the 
late afternoon sun like the plumage of a gigantic 
peacock, in every mysterious blend of blue and green 
and purple. 

As usual, the outer courtyard was a warren of 
teeming humanity and humanity's wives and children 
and mothers-in-law and visiting country cousins: 
saises and grass cutters, cooks and courtiers and 
mahajuns and paunchy assistants of Gulabian, vil¬ 
lagers from the countryside come to present a petition 
or to call on friend and relative in the palace service, 
desert men who had brought the slim taxes of the 
farther lands, wealthy thakur sahehs, landed gentle¬ 
men, in immaculate white and immense turbans, Babus 
fondly hugging huge account books bound in soft 
Bokhara leather, sellers of shawls and perfumes, of 
Persian brocade and gold-threaded Fyzabad muslin 
and all the many other things which are bought by 
the women of the harem; all talking, laughing ex¬ 
citedly . . . raising shrill voices of welcome as the 
princess, by Hector's side, passed through the gate. 


252 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


with Gulabian’s tall fur cap bobbing up and down as 
he made salaam after salaam, and the old nurse acting 
as a sort of impromptu choir leader. 

**Alhamdulillahr she cried. ^Thou hast come 
back to us, O Aziza Nurmahal, O great soul of my 
little and worthless soul! Thou hast touched with the 
flame of thy return the lightless lamp of my sorrow! 

*'And thou, O A 1 Nakia”—turning to Hector and 
clutching him in a bony embrace—*'thou hast blown 
away the dead leaves that flitted in the wind of my 
grief! Thou art the sunshine that trickles through 
the patter of the gray rain. Thou . . 

She turned and faced Babu Chandra, who was 
plucking at her sleeve: 

What is it, O he-goat 

The Babu overlooked the insult and addressed him¬ 
self direct to Hector, speaking in that chaos of mur¬ 
dered English slang that, since he was a Babu, was 
as dear to him as the crimson caste mark on his fore¬ 
head. 

‘‘Saheb!’’ he said. '^Regret to report that War- 
burton saheb had to leave in regular old whirlwind 
of a hurry.’’ 

‘That so?” asked Hector, who had forgotten all 
about the American. 

“Yes. His daughter has been jolly well copped by 
no end of jolly, fat old rufflan—right-oh!” said 
Chandra, with the self-conscious pride and satisfac¬ 
tion peculiar to the bearers of bad tidings. 


CHAPTER XVI 

In which a fat Arab, called “The Basin,” plays Cupid. 

The Babuls tale was substantially the same which 
he had told Mr. Warburton and which had caused 
the latter to rush out of the audience hall and straddle 
the first horse he saw in the palace courtyard. 

One of the tofanghees, the irregular soldiers, who 
had been left behind as a body-guard for Jane at the 
little village not far from the capital, had ridden into 
town with the news that the fat Afghan charpadar 
who, with his lean companion, had joined the caravan 
a day or two earlier, had returned to the village atop 
a swift dromedary. He had talked to Jane War- 
burton; then, suddenly, had dismounted, had picked 
her up and lifted her into the saddle, and, in spite of 
his immense bulk, had vaulted up behind her, using 
the dromedary's tail as a handle in true desert style, 
and had been off at a gallop. 

Of course, the tofanghees had not been able to 
shoot, afraid they might hit the girl, but half-a-dozen 
of them had started in pursuit 

Thus the Babu's tale, told with a beatific smile and 
a conscious stressing and straining of dramatic high 
spots, and, momentarily, Hector Wade came near to 
fainting. It seemed to him as if he were sinking into 
a cushion of air. 


253 


254 lTHE mating of THE BLADES 


His senses reeled as he pictured it all: the girl he 
loved—the rough Afghan charpadar who had kid¬ 
naped her—the . . . 

No, no! 

For a moment, subconsciously, as much out of pity 
and love for the girl as pity for himself, he tried to 
force the conviction on his mind that the reality could 
not be half as bad, as appalling, as dreadfully anguish¬ 
ing, as the fantastic terrors of his imagination. Later 
on, thinking of the experience, he would say that dur¬ 
ing that minute his heart was pierced with all the ac¬ 
cumulated sufferings of humanity since first God and 
the Devil fought over the soul of Cain. 

Jane—^Jane Warburton—at the mercy of an Afghan 
charpadar, a lawless hillman who brooked no master 
except his own passion, his own greed, his own 
cruelty! 

In the midst of all that eddying swirl of teeming, 
turbaned humanity who, sensing the tragedy, looked at 
him, some with sympathy, some with wonder, others, 
the majority, with frank curiosity, he felt utterly 
alone—racially alone, than which there is no worse 
loneliness in all the world. 

A sharp pain tugged at his heart. His knees tot¬ 
tered. The low-dipping sun seemed to swing to and 
fro in a blazing brownish-yellow pendulum. A flood 
of red color with broad, interlacing veins floated be¬ 
fore his eyes. 

Again—and, being a strong man, physically, and 
unconsciously proud of the fact, he was ashamed even 
as he realized it—^he came near to fainting; and then. 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 255 

unmindful of the staring crowd, the princess put her 
slight arms about him. 

“A 1 Nakia/' she whispered, ‘^cousin mine—tell met 
This foreign girl of whom the Babu spoke—is 

she . . . 

Hector inclined his head without speaking. Dry 
eyed, vacant eyed, he stared at his feet. 

‘‘Cousin—cousin mineT* 

Aziza Nurmahal did not say what she was going to 
say, perhaps did not know what she was going to 
say. She could not speak. Sympathy? To be sure, 
she felt sympathy with Hector. But she was too 
Oriental to attempt the impossible which a European 
would have tried: to grapple with another human^s 
sentiments; to pronounce words of condolence or 
pity. 

It would have seemed indelicate to her. For, in her 
psychology, grief and sorrow and pain were harsh 
things, lonely, cut-off things—invisible units of Fate 
which every man must bear alone, which no man can 
share; and typically Oriental, too, was she in her re¬ 
actions, which were practically always mental, and 
not, as in a European, emotional. 

Thus, when words finally came to her, they were 
soberly practical and constructive. 

“The Babu spoke of two Afghans, one lean and 
the other fat. It is a wise thing to draw out the thorn 
in one’s foot with the thorn in one’s hand.” 

“What dost thou mean?” asked Hector. 

“That we have one of the—ah—‘Afghans' here. 
The lean one, who turned out to be a Tamerlani, by 
the name of Abderrahman Yahiah Khan. Let us ask 


256 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


him about his brother-rogue. Hey—Shikandar!” She 
turned to a servant. “Fetch me the governor of the 
western marches!’’ 

Abderrahman Yahiah Khan came, listened, and took 
in the situation, including its ramified potentialities, 
at a glance. 

Serenely overlooking the detail that, not long be¬ 
fore, in the mausoleum, he had been willing and ready 
to sacrifice Musa Al-Mutasim's head on the altar of 
his own safety, he now felt hurt and indignant that 
the Arab, without consulting him, should have kid¬ 
naped Warburton saheb’s daughter, with evidently 
not the slightest intention of letting him share in what¬ 
ever ransom he might be able to extort. 

His words, therefore, throbbed with bitterness as 
well as unfeigned, simon-pure moral shock. 

“The fat—what didst thou say, Aziza Nurmahal— 
Afghan? Afghan indeed! He is an obese and in¬ 
decent impostor! He is Musa Al-Mutasim, the 
renegade Arab who for years has made the western 
marches unsafe . . 

“Which thou knowest well, O grandson of abundant 
filth I” cut in the old nurse, wagging a grimy, threaten¬ 
ing thumb. 

“Silence, Not-Wanted!’" said the governor. 

Then, turning to Hector and the princess, the 
crowd having dispersed at a gesture of the latter, he 
told them about the ancient Tartar castle named 
Jabul-i-Shuhada, “The Place of the Martyrs,’' which 
belonged to the Arab and was his ever-ready place 
of refuge in case of dire need. 


[THE MATING OF THE BLADES 257 

‘Tt is a stout place, easily defended, and can stand 
a long siege,” he went on. “Before Al-Mutasim and 
I left the western marches he had it put in readiness— 
originally for me and thee, Aziza Nurmahal, when I, 
being a foolish man and almost childlike in my im¬ 
pulsiveness . . 

“Childlike? Thou? Childlike!” screamed Ayesha 
Zemzem. “By Zubalzan, son of Satan! I . . .” 

“Childlike indeed, O Pig’s Brain!” came the gov¬ 
ernor’s ready repartee. “Childlike in thinking that 
I might be able to throw a noose around the far stars 
of desire and sweetness and beauty—that thou, Aziza, 
wouldst give me thy love and flood me with it, as the 
blessed rain floods the thirsty earth, and . . .” 

“What about the Arab?” asked Hector, fretting. 
“Come on. What about him? And what about the 
Tartar castle? I”—he loosened the blade in its scab¬ 
bard—“by God, I think that thou art delaying us on 
purpose with all this talk about . . .” 

“Patience, son of a most impatient mother,” said 
Abderrahman Yahiah Khan, gently, “and remember 
that this same patience is the key of relief— is-subr 
miff ah il-faraj, yah saheb! As to the castle, Musa 
Al-Mutasim is doubtless on his way there.” 

“Where is it ?” asked the princess. 

‘‘Ah—a sensible question—where is it? I know 
where it is, and I shall go there, myself, at the head 
of a squadron of troopers, ^nd presently we will 
storm the castle—though it will take weeks—and, with 
my own hand, in sign of my loyalty, shall I cut that 
Arab dog’s throat from his fat left ear to his fat right 
ear.” 


258 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


‘‘And what will happen to the girl in the mean¬ 
time?” demanded Hector. 

“Nothing, saheb. See—Musa Al-Mutasim is not as 
I am”—^he smiled, shamelessly, at the princess who, 
being perversely feminine and as perversely Oriental, 
liked him better with every word he spoke—“no! he 
is not as I am, full-blooded, a dallier with the words 
of love, a drawer of the sword of passion. Passion? 
By my beard! Gold is his passion—for he is a 
hoarder of coin, a swollen money bag, a cursed bor¬ 
rower of half-rupees! He only holds the girl for 
ransom!” 

“But . . 

“But”—continued the governor—“when he sees 
that there is no gold for him, but a dagger across his 
throat, he will pipe a different tune. Trust me, saheb, 
and do not worry. I know that obese son of a thou¬ 
sand devils!” 

He walked away, snapping his fingers, well pleased 
with himself; and it was a proof of the man^s elo¬ 
quence, in a way of the man's greatness, that, for a 
moment. Hector was persuaded that the scheme was 
perfectly feasible, that, with the exception of certain 
unavoidable inconveniences, Jane Warburton was 
really safe, and it took the old nurse to see the flaw 
in the argument. 

“Fool!” she shouted after Abderrahman Yahiah 
Khan's retreating back. “A blind fool, filling the lap 
of the morning wind with seventy times seventy 
bundles of empty vaporings! For”—she turned to 
Hector—“consider! Will Musa Al-Mutasim spare 
the girl when he sees that he is lost ?” 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 259 


‘Why . . 

At once Hector understood, and he felt again that 
terrible sensation of faintness when, amidst the shouts 
of the servants that crowded the outer gate, three peo¬ 
ple entered the courtyard, and he saw, to his unspeak¬ 
able joy and amazement, that it was Jane, accompanied 
by her father and by a gigantic figure of a man whom 
the old nurse, with a shrill scream, greeted as: 

“Musa Al-Mutasim! By the red pig’s bristles! 
Musa Al-Mutasim I” 

Hector did not hear the last words. He heard 
nothing, saw nothing except Jane; and, forgetting 
the crowd that watched curiously from the gate, for¬ 
getting the princess, the nurse, the Arab, and Mr. 
Ezra Warburton, he rushed up to her and took her in 
his arms. 

“My dear—oh, my dear . . 

He stammered. English to the core he was, for 
all his strain of Tamerlani blood which bound his 
destiny with that of Asia, and English, too, was his 
love, lean, wiry, strong, a little hard. But, as he held 
her to him, close, the love he bore her swept over him 
with an overwhelming force and sweetness, and he 
did not have to use Cambuscan’s Mirror to tell him 
that his love was returned. 

She kissed him full on the lips. 

Then she laughed. 

“Hector,” she said, “I am surprised at you. This 
isn’t the correct way to propose to a girl—nor exactly 
the correct place!” 

“I don’t care,” laughed Hector, “I’m never going 


26 o JHE mating of THE BLADES 


to be correct again as long as I live \”—and he kissed 
her, very much to the delight of the old nurse who, 
remembering a lover of, her youth, a Rajput with 
split beard and hooded eyes and a sprig of jessamine 
behind his ear who had drifted across the Himalayas 
into Central Asia, broke into a high-pitched Indian 
love song: 

“As the sugar cane has a sweeter taste, 

Knot after knot from the top, 

Even thus is the sweetness of thy body, beloved, 

Each time thou givest it to me . . 

And, in the exuberance of her emotion, she threw 
her bony arms around Mr. Warburton^s neck and 
kissed him smackingly on the lips. The financier, 
embarrassed, indignant, would doubtless have been 
even more indignant had he been able to understand 
the words of her song, as she continued: 

“For thy body, beloved. 

Is a garden of strange and lascivious flowers 
Which I gather in the night . . 

By this time Musa Al-Mutasim, who had enjoyed 
to the full the sensation which his arrival had caused, 
had salaamed before the princess with outstretched 
hands. 

‘T am in the shade of thy little white feet,’’ he said, 
with that rather grandiose and irresistible hypocrisy 
which is the Arab’s birthright as much as passion and 
greed, ‘'and my sword is thine and my manhood and 
my loyalty and my strength!” 

Words which, given Musa Al-Mutasim’s reputation 


THE MATING OF THH BLADES 261 


as a robber and murderer and border raider and all¬ 
round '‘bad man/’ served only to increase the sensa¬ 
tion his arrival had caused. 

Even the princess, an Oriental herself, thus used 
to the, to a European forever inexplicable, but in 
reality quite logical, turns and twists of Asiatic 
reasoning, looked puzzled. 

"Thy sword?” she demanded. "Thy loyalty and 
strength and manhood? And what then would I do 
with them, O thou great and shameless thief ?” 

"Behold!” said the Arab, with a magnificent ges¬ 
ture, "I give them all to thee!” 

*'Gidar rakhe mans ke thati ’^—Ayesha Zemzem cut 
in—"who would keep meat on trust with a jackal?” 

"A wise man would,” retorted the robber. 

"What? A wise man?” 

"Indeed! After he has caused the jackal to be well 
fed—exceedingly well fed—as I am well fed!” and 
he produced a silk purse filled to the bursting point 
with gold. 

He went on to explain that, on his way to the 
Tartar castle, his dromedary had tripped, fallen, 
broken a leg, and left him helpless in the desert not 
far from the village. The tofanghees who had ridden 
in pursuit had, in consequence, caught up with him, 
but had again been afraid to shoot. 

"For,” he said, "I value life—life which is as un¬ 
certain as the trick of the peg to the hand of the 
unskilled horseman,, and so”—naively—"I used the 
foreign girl as a shield—a soft shield, a warm shield, 
but a strong shield!” 


262 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


‘Wert thou not ashamed of thyself?” asked 
Aziza Nurmahal, to be met by the counter ques¬ 
tion: 

“Wouldst thou be ashamed to drink when thou art 
thirsty? WahT 

He shrugged his fat shoulders, and continued. 

It appeared that, with the tofanghees afraid to 
shoot and himself unable to for the simple reason that 
he had no weapon except his short dagger, the situa¬ 
tion had reached an impasse; and so they had sat 
there, in the desert, carefully watching each other, 
the Arab never for a moment releasing his bearlike 
hold on Jane Warburton, when, riding as he had 
never ridden before, Mr. Ezra Warburton had arrived 
on the scene. 

He was a business man, first, last, and all the time. 
At times unreasonable, at other times irritable and 
nervous, he always emerged from his fits of temper 
or despondency to be frankly practical. 

Thus, seeing his daughter in the Arab’s arms, he 
had at first rushed forward—^to be pulled back by 
one of the tofanghees, Mansoor Khan, who spoke a 
little English and warned him that his daughter’s life 
was at stake. 

Then he had hurled a flood of epithets at the 
other’s head which, being in English, affected the 
Arab as much as a buzzing of flies. 

Finally, his business instinct had come to the fore, 
and he had discovered that the robber, too, was at 
heart a business man. So, with the tofanghee playing 
interpreter, the two business men had arrived at an 
agreement, by the terms of which—“a simple matter 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 263 

of trade/’ the Arab called it—Mr. Warburton paid a 
thumping ransom for his daughter. 

“He furthermore guaranteed,” Musa Al-Mutasim 
wound up, “that, if I surrendered to the Tamerlanistan 
authorities, my life would be safe.” 

What the Arab did not explain was his reasoning 
for the latter resolve. He did not explain that, never 
before, had he realized that there was as much money 
in the world as Mr. Warburton was paying as ransom 
for his daughter, nor, if there were, that anybody 
should have as little sense as to pay it out. He had 
therefore considered Warburton what an American 
would have called an “easy mark,” and had proposed 
to stick to him, through thick arid thin, as a financial 
prospect far more promising and much less danger¬ 
ous than border brigandage. 

There was of course his former companion in crime, 
Abderrahman Yahiah Khan; but, very much as the 
latter had been ready to sacrifice him during the 
interview with Hector in the mausoleum, so he was 
willing to sacrifice the governor for his own ad¬ 
vantage. In the Orient, at least, it is not true that 
there is honor amongst thieves—nor, perhaps, in the 
Occident. 

“Aziza Nurmahal,” he said; and to Hector, the 
words sounded suspiciously like those which the gov¬ 
ernor of the western marches had used, “I have been 
bad and wicked. Now I have reformed. Command 
me—•” 

“To do what ?” asked the princess. 

“To bring peace to the western marches that—^alas! 


264 the mating of the blades 


—^too long have been torn by strife and turmoil and” 
—^he said it quite naively—“the plundering of the 
caravans. Say the word, and I myself shall see to 
it that the armed men under my command join thy 
service. As to Higgins saheb and the other saheb, 
the easiest way would be to kill them. For a dead 
horse does not eat grass, and a dead saheb does not 
ask for "concessions.’ ” 

""What about Abderrahman Yahiah Khan?” de¬ 
manded Hector, with a twinkle in his eye. 

""He is a scoundrel,” said the Arab. ""He is in 
league with Musboot, the lord of lies and fleas. It 
is he who led me astray from the right path—the path 
of virtue—I swear it by my mother’s honor! He 
is ...” 

Quite suddenly, he was silent. His jaws dropped, 
and, perhaps for the first time in his life, he blushed. 

For there in the crowd stood Abderrahman Yahiah 
Khan, a smile curling his thin lips —a smile that pres¬ 
ently changed into a laugh. 

The Arab, too, laughed. 

‘"Ho, brother!” he shouted. ""Ho, soul of my 
soul!”—and, without any more ado, they fell in each 
other’s arms. 

It was Babu Chandra who, talking to Gulabian that 
night, put it all in a nutshell. 

""If the man be ugly,” he said, “what can the mirror 
do? If a man be a liar, how can we expect truth 
from him? But even an ugly man has his uses. 
Even a liar has his uses. I myself,” he added, un- 
blushingly, “have been known to lie at times.” 


(CHAPTER XVII 

Proving that all’s well that ends well. 

‘‘Father dear,” said Jane Warburton, days later, 
“you are as platitudinously impressive as a Bishop!” 

“A remark,” rejoined the financier, “which lacks in 
reverence both to the church and to myself. 

“Jane,” he said after a pause and, rather, as if the 
admission hurt him, “you are my only child, and I 
love you.” 

“You don’t exactly show it, dad!” came the quick 
reply. 

“I show it in my own way.” 

“Your own way is to . . .” 

“To stop you from doing a foolish thing which 
you’d regret sooner or later.” 

“One never regrets love, dad 1” 

“One does, too 1” 

And, fon the tenth time, Mr. Warburton reiterated 
his objections to the marriage of his daughter and 
Hector Wade. 

Mr. Ezra Warburton was a manly man—^what is 
called so in lieu of a better term—who had always 
been in the habit of considering his daughter’s sex as 
rather an indelicate intrusion into his business life— 
which was his whole life. Of course he loved her, 
265 



266 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 

loved her dearly, but the fact that she was a girl and 
not a boy somehow rankled; it was the only thing 
for which he had ever blamed his dead wife. Even 
then he would not have minded it so much, had not 
Jane, at an early age, exhibited certain man-like char¬ 
acteristics, chiefly a decisive and stubborn inde¬ 
pendence, which he would have admired in a son, but 
which irritated him in a daughter; the more so as 
Jane, with either conscious or unconscious cleverness, 
used her strictly feminine characteristics to back up 
and reenforce her masculine qualities—tempering 
steel with diamond, as it were—a combination which 
Mr. Warburton found it hard to combat. 

The result was that she usually had her own way; 
and a further result was chromatic friction. As a 
rule, at least in minor matters, this friction was 
allayed by Mr. Warburton giving in, but in more im¬ 
portant matters he acted differently at times, and 
showed a stubbornness which fully equaled hers. 

He did so now, as he repeated that, even supposing 
that Hector had been innocently accused of cheating 
at cards, even granting that he had made a splendid 
success as de facto regent of Tamerlanistan, the fact 
of the old scandal which had driven him from England 
still existed, and could not be overl(»ked. 

‘‘What difference does that make?’' demanded Jane. 
“He lives here—and not in England. He’s through 
with Mayfair and Belgravia and the Horse Guards 
Barracks !’^ 

“The greater his success here, the more his 
enemies . . .” 

“He has no enemies—no personal enemies!” 


THE MATING OF. JHE BLADES 267 

‘‘He will have pro rata with his success. Yes—the 
greater his success here, the more his enemies will dig 
into his past, and make capital out of the old scandal. 
And, sooner or later, he is bound to visit England. 
Chiefly if he marries you. You don’t want to stay 
in Tamerlanistan all the rest of your natural life!” 

And then he reminded her of her old promise not to 
marry Hector Wade until the latter had completely 
cleared his name. 

Hector, when appealed to by Jane, agreed with Mr. 
Warburton. 

He did not know what it was : either the subtle in¬ 
fluence of the fatalistic Orient, or a deep conviction 
in his own heart; but, somehow, he felt absolutely 
sure that, sooner or later, the stigma and taint that 
marred his name would be removed. 

“Why are you so sure?” asked Jane. “Have you 
heard from home? Has your brother confessed per¬ 
haps?” For, by this time, though Hector, faithful to 
the promise he had given his father, had not given her 
any explanation of the affair, she, putting two and two 
together, had made to herself a pretty clear picture 
of what had happened. “Or has your father . . . ?” 

“No, dear. It’s something different. You see. 
I’m not a religious man—what goes under the name of 
religion, what? But I have a certain belief in the 
everlasting squareness and decency of—oh, you know 
—things!” 

“Things!” mimicked Jane. “You are an inarticu¬ 
late old dear, and I’m afraid you’ll be a most unsatis¬ 
factory lover!” 


268 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 


“No, I won’t!” he said, boyishly, just a little hurt. 
“And that’s just what I mean. Love I You see, love 
is the greatest force in the world, and I do love you, 
heart and soul and body, and every last, deepest, finest, 
most secret thought in me. And—why—it’s bound 
to come out all right—don’t you see—sooner or 
later!” 

“Yes,” murmured Jane, “it’s bound to come out all 
right!” 

It did, rather sooner than Hector expected; and 
it began, not many weeks afterwards, with the gover¬ 
nor of the western marches entering the audience hall 
arm in arm with Musa Al-Mutasim, and proclaiming, 
with a great deal of self-righteousness, that—by the 
red pig’s bristles!—^he had now proved once and for 
all his loyalty which, so it appeared, glistened in his 
soul as “the early rays of the young sun glisten in the 
tree tops of a staunch forest, O Aziza Nurmahal!” 

With which and, too, with a triumphant side 
glance at his twin brother and worst enemy, the 
governor of the eastern marches, he related that the 
confidential messengers whom he had despatched to 
his headquarters in the western province had returned, 
that his and Musa Al-Mutasim’s armies had sworn 
fealty to the established government, and that even 
now a picked squadron under the command of Koom 
Khan was on the way, with the two sahebs as 
prisoners, to be dealt with as they deserved. 

“As they deserve, by the horns of the Archangel 
Ashrafeel!” echoed the Arab, winking significantly at 
Wahab al-Shaitan, the chief executioner. 


JHE MATING OF THE BLADES 269 

Three days later, amidst great excitement that 
spread from the streets and bazaars and mosques, 
where the cries of the populace were like a noise of 
a distant sea ebbing and flowing and whirling and 
eddying in regular beats, to the highest turret of the 
Gengizkhani palace where the ‘‘Watcher of the Far 
Places'’ broke into high-pitched ululations of triumph, 
Koom Khan rode into town. He was at the head of 
a picked squadron of the recent rebels—now loyal 
supporters of Aziza Nurmahal, as they shouted to the 
throng—and near the end of the cortege, astride 
donkeys, their hands bound behind their backs and 
their heads facing the animals' tails, came Mr. Pre¬ 
served Higgins and The Honorable Tollemache Wade 
—butts for the crude jests of the populace, also for a 
number of decrepit lemons and melons and eggs. 

A great wave of joy surged from end to end of the 
capital: the turmoil and strife was over, once more 
peace had returned to the land, and even the Sheik-ul- 
Islam, who had sneaked back into town, none knew 
when and why, gave pious and hypocritical thanks 
that Khizr, the green star of peace and plenty, was 
again blessing Tamerlanistan, quoting learnedly from 
the Koran, proving his point by quoting about ten 
chapters from the Marah al-Falah, and then reenforc¬ 
ing his opinion by five hundred lines from the Shark 
Ayni. 

Joy and excitement and an impromptu holiday— 
the noisy holiday of Asia—with tents and ambling 
coffee houses, cook shops and lemonade stands, toy 
booths and merry-go-rounds jumping from the ground 
like mushrooms—and bear leaders and ballad singers, 


270 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 

ape leaders, fakirs, buffoons, jugglers, fortune tellers, 
snake charmers, and dancing boys in women’s attire. 

And, also impromptu, the love-making of Asia 
which is a trifle indelicate to Western ears and 
prejudices; the correct method of procedure being for 
the gallant man to tilt his turban or fur cap to a 
rakish angle—to show that he is a fast man—to tease 
his mustaches to the sharp points of a single, well- 
waxed hair, to shoulder his ashen stick, and to stalk 
about with a nonchalant, devil-may-care air until he 
sees a lady whose eyes seem to roll invitingly behind 
her veil. Then a graceful attitude and soft words: 

Bride! O Female Pilgrim! O Dispenser of 
Delights!”—and whatever else the gallant man may 
have to say. 

There is of course the chance that the Dispenser 
of Delights will refuse to dispense the same and will 
reply with some such little thing as: ‘'May Allah cut 
out thy heart and feed it to the most unclean pigs of 
Syria! Curse thee for an unbelieving and thrice-un- 
clean dog!” or: “Verily I declare that thy ancestry is 
rotten and thy manners deplorable! Verily I declare 
that thy female progenitors have been shameless and 
disreputable since the day of Allah’s creation!” 

Then the man’s retort, with a proper drawl: *^Wah, 
ya'l aguz —Ho, Old Woman!” and he would move 
away very quickly. For the temper of the fair ones 
of Asia is short and they may tell things about a 
man and his ancestry which never can be translated 
word for word into English—for reasons. 

Joy and excitement, and cheers for Gulabian, for 
Koom Khan, for the princess, for A 1 Nakia! 


JHE MATING OF THE BLADES 271 

Peace! 

Friend would meet friend and greet each other with 
all the extravagance of the East, throwing themselves 
upon each otheFs breasts, placing right arm over left 
shoulder, squeezing like wrestlers, with intermittent 
hugs and caresses, then laying cheek delicately against 
cheek and flat palm against palm, at the same time 
making the loud, smacking noise of many kisses in the 
air. 

When the prisoners were brought into the audience 
hall. Hector was utterly astonished to recognize his 
brother. 

‘‘Tollemache!’’he cried. 'Why—Tollemache . . 

Then, quickly, he suppressed the words that were 
rising to his lips. He was here as the regent of 
Tamerlanistan and the other as a rebel—a slightly 
amused, slightly amazed, and altogether coolly col¬ 
lected rebel, in contrast to Mr. Preserved Higgins who 
believed, to quote his own words, in "bullyin’ the 
other feller before the other feller gets a chance to 
bully you.^’ 

'T s'yr he shouted. "Wofs all this ’ere muckin’ 
about mean—mykin’ me ride a donkey ’indside-front, 
and pokin’ me at the point of a bleedin’ lance all over 
this ’ere plurry, second-’and continent? I’m goin’ to 
raise a ’ell of a stink with the British government, 
I am. I’m a British subject—and no lousy, card- 
cheatin’ . . 

"Shut up, you damned cad!” whispered Tollemache. 
"I tell you that . . 

And then he was suddenly silent. For the Princess 


272 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 

Aziza Nurmahal, accompanied by Ayesha Zemzem, 
had entered the audience hall and was looking at him. 

Long she looked, and steadily. 

Hector Wade was in a quandary. By all the laws 
and rules of the land, it was his duty to sentence these 
two men to death. 

Tollemache was his brother. 

He said so to the princess, in a whisper. 

“He is my brother, Aziza Nurmahal.’* 

“Then he, too, is of the blood of the Gengizkhani—” 

“Yes . . 

“And,” continued the princess, dreamily, “he, too, 
is the 'Expected One’ . . .” 

Hector had not heard her last remark. He did not 
know what to do or say. 

Tollemache! His brother! He himself, on the 
other hand, was the regent of Tamerlanistan. There 
was his responsibility, his duty, toward the land, the 
princess. 

His duty! Here it flooded through the mists of 
his brotherly affection—for he loved Tollemache, card 
scandal or no card scandal—like a naked, lonely hulk 
on a gray sea. 

Yes, whatever his love for his brother, his duty 
came first. He couldn’t help Tollemache. No! He 
couldn’t help him—he repeated the words to himself 
over and over again—^he couldn’t help him, and no 
mistake. 

He rose, about to pass sentence; and then, before 
he could speak, the princess raised her scepter. 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 273 

'The durbar is over/' she said, in a clear, ringing 
voice. 

"But," protested Koom Khan, "the prisoners—the 
two sahebs—what punishment . . 

"I am the autocrat of this land," said the princess, 
"remember that, Koom Khan. Remember, too"— 
touching the ancient English blade which connected 
the fate of her clan with that of the Wades of 
Dealle—"that once I was forced to forget that I am 
a woman and . . 

"I remember," said Koom Khan, hastily, looking at 
the scar which disfigured his wrist. 

"Good! The durbar is over. Let Higgins saheb 
be put in a stout prison. And as to the other saheb— 
I—I forgive him I For he, too, is of the Gengizkhani 
blood! His coming, too, was spoken of in the old 
prophecy—the wooing of the blades!" 

And it was Jane who, being a woman and in love, 
thus wise beyond her years, put the right construction 
on the strange scene. 

"Dad," she said to Mr. Warburton, "the little 
princess is in love with Tollemache Wade. She 
practically told him so." 

"Most indelicate," commented her father, who 
considered all the softer emotions as rather im¬ 
moral. 

"I don't know, dad. It's the custom in the Orient 
for the woman to make the advances to the man." 

"Can't say that, in this respect, the Orient differs 
so very much from the Occident,'’ rejoined her father 
cynically. 


274 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 

Later during the day Hector talked to his brother 
in private. 

He remembered how, years earlier, Tollemache had 
been his boyhood hero. From cricket to rugger, from 
bird-nesting to running with the harrier hounds, from 
singlestick fencing to a bout with the gloves, there 
was nothing which the other had not been able to do. 
Even afterwards, when both brothers belonged to the 
Dragoons and when Tollemache had got into debt. 
Hector had not lost his admiration, had often inter¬ 
ceded for him with their father. 

That card scandal? 

Why—Hector said to himself that he understood. 
The temptation had been terrible, there had been that 
chorus girl—Gwendolyn something-or-other. Why, 
it would be all right, if Tollemache would only make 
a clean breast of it, if he would only play the game! 

He put it into words, impulsively: 

‘Tollemache! Fm no jolly good at this sentimental 
stuff . . 

“Nor 1 . Rather un-English, what?” 

“Rather. But—I say—Fm fond of you, you 
know—” 

“Thanks, old chap, and right back at you 1 ” 

“Then why aren’t you frank with me ? Why don’t 
you ’fess up?” 

“Nothing to ’fess up,” smiled Tollemache. “Upon 
my word, I had no idea it was you who were regent 
here—A 1 Nakia—and all that sort of drivel. That 
cad of a Higgins never told me that . . 

“Fm not speaking about that, Tollemache. I mean 
ithe old card scandal I” 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 275 

The smile faded from the older man’s lips. 

‘‘You believe it was I who cheated, don’t you?” 

“Of course!” came the blunt reply. 

“Well—by God—though neither you nor the 
guv’nor ever gave me a chance to explain—I didn’t I” 

“You—you ... ?” 

“/— did—notr 

And, suddenly. Hector understood that Tollemache 
was speaking the truth. 

“Who did—then ... ?” he stammered; and then: 
“By Jingo, I have it! It’s clear—as clear as day¬ 
light! It was Higgins!” 

“Higgins? Rot! He has enough of the ready to 
burn it in chunks. A thousand quid is nothing to 
him!” 

“I know. But . . .” 

And Hector told his brother how Mr. Preserved 
Higgins, via Babu Bansi and Gulabian had heard of 
the prophecy of the blades, of the Englishman who, ac¬ 
cording to it, would come out of the West to save 
Tamerlanistan. 

“So he went ahead and found out the name of the 
English family—our family, Tollemache—-the Wades 
of Dealle—and he came to our house.” 

“Yes. I remember. Under the pretext that he 
wanted to buy or rent Dealle Castle, wasn’t it? But 
—how did he find out that we were meant in the 
prophecy—even before we did ourselves ?” 

“I don’t know. But he did. And—you see, he’s 
Mr. Warburton’s old enemy, and both are after land 
concessions, as you know—he decided to—oh—^how 
would you put it?” 


276 THE MATING OF THE BLADES 

''Get one of our family into his toils, what ? Regu¬ 
lar melodramatic style!’' 

"Exactly,"’ replied Hector. "After the scandal, he 
interviewed me, asked me to go to Asia for him. But 
I wouldn’t play. I knocked him down. Then he 
got you. It’s all perfectly clear.” 

"Right-oh! Let’s interview our amazing Cockney 
friend!” 

They did, and they found Mr. Preserved Higgins 
at first inclined to bluster. 

But Hector reminded him of the fact that he was 
regent of Tamerlanistan, and that a word to the 
executioner would . . . 

"You wouldn’t?” protested Mr. Preserved Higgins. 
"Ain’t we both British gents? I s’y—look ’ere . . .” 

"No use arguing,” said Hector. "Either you own 
up or . . .” 

"Right-oh, cocky!” said Mr. Preserved Higgins, 
with that sudden and complete change of front which 
was one of his main characteristics and which, often, 
in the past, had given him the victory in financial 
battles. "You ’ave me by the short ’air on my neck. 
I own up, see? It was me cheated at cards. I used 
to myke oodles of tin at it, years back, when I was 
in South Africa and still belonged to these ’ere down¬ 
trodden masses.” 

Pressed to be more explicit, he told how, on the 
day of the old Ameer’s death, his faithful agent, the 
Babu Bansi, had cabled him, had followed it up by 
other wires which detailed the story of the prophecy 
and the blades, and that, for the reasons which the 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 277 

brothers had already guessed, he had made the ac¬ 
quaintance of their father, the earl, under the pretext 
of renting Dealle Castle. 

‘‘But how did you find out that it was our family 
which was meant by the prophecy?’' demanded 
Tollemache. 

“Nothin’ to that, old cocky wax! The Babu, ’e 
cybles me a description of the escutcheon wot is on 
this ’ere old English blyde wot the princess ’as, and 
so I and a sandy-’aired gent wot’s my confidential 
secretary does a bit of lookin’ through the peerage 
and the orfice of ’eraldry, until we finds this ’ere 
escutcheon—a double-’eaded eagle, ain’t it? You 
know the rest!” 

“I do,” smiled Hector, “but you don’t!” 

“Wot you mean?” 

“That you are going to cable over to London, to 
that secretary of yours, and have him put a full page 
advertisement in all the London dailies and the more 
important provincial papers, with a complete con¬ 
fession of what you did.” 

“I won’t,” said Mr. Preserved Higgins. 

“You will,” rejoined Hector, pointing through the 
iron-barred window at the palace courtyard where 
Wahab al-Shaitan, resplendent in his crimson-and- 
black robe, his two-handed sword across his supple 
shoulders, was saying light words of love to Kumar 
Zaida, the little slave girl. 

“Right-oh 1 ” said Mr. Preserved Higgins. “I will 

Thus it happened that a sandy-haired gentleman, 
the next morning, looking from the fly-specked 
window; at the gray, coiling streets of London City, 


278 JHE MATING OF THE BLADES 


went to the door, opened and read a lengthy cable¬ 
gram, whistled through his teeth, and said to himself 
that the guv’nor must have gone batty in his bloomin' 
old belfry. 

But, knowing Mr. Preserved Higgins of old, he fol¬ 
lowed the instructions to the letter, and caused Fleet 
Street and Bishopsgate Street and Lombard Street to 
zum with the greatest financial sensation of a decade. 

*‘Extry—extry!" shrilled the newsboys. '"Mr. 
Tggins, the fymous capitalist, mykes full confession 
. . . cheated at cards . . . extry—extry!" 

It was a few days later that Hector Wade, walk¬ 
ing through the palace garden arm in arm with Jane, 
suddenly stopped and put his finger on his lips. 

‘‘Listen!" he whispered. 

For, from behind an immense, gnarled deodar tree, 
drifted voices, the princess' and Tollemache's, speak¬ 
ing in soft, gliding Persian which Hector translated 
to Jane in an undertone. 

“Aziza Nurmahal!" said Tollemache, “I need thee, 
I need thee so! The thought of thee going out of 
my life—God!—I cannot stand it. I could not face 
existence without thee!" 

And the princess' answer: 

“And I, too, best beloved, I need thee. Without 
thee, life would be but the dust of the rose petal, with 
the sweetness, the perfume, gone forever! Without 
thee, I shall be as lonely as the gray cliff swallow! I 
need thee, dear, as thou needest me. Thou art the 
Expected One I Thou and I, together, will finally ful¬ 
fill the ancient prophecy—the wooing of blades!" 


THE MATING OF THE BLADES 279 

And it was of the wooing of, blades that, not many 
days later, when the palace and the town, the mosques 
and bazaars and caravanserais rang with shouts of 
joy to celebrate the , double wedding, Tollemache 
marrying the princess, and Hector marrying Jane 
Warburton, Ayesha Zemzem, the old nurse, spoke to 
Koom Khan and Gulabian. 

‘‘Two heads are better than one,’’ she said, “when 
it comes to deal with such crafty rogues as you two 
—not to mention the governor of the western marches 
and Musa Al-Mutasim and many other scoundrels. 
The two A 1 Nakias! The two Expected Ones! 
Brothers and friends! And together rulers of this 
land! A brave wooing of blades indeed!” 

“And a wooing of hearts,” said Kumar Zaida, the 
little slave girl, “a wooing of bodies and . . 

“Silence!” shrilled the nurse. “Silence, shameless 
daughter of a pimple! Thou art too young to know 
aught of love!” 

“And thou too old!” came the reply, as Kumar 
Zaida ducked and ran to escape the nurse’s stick. 


CHAPTER- XVIII 


The wisdom of the old—which is, of course, the End. 

Not many days later—the day following the de¬ 
parture of Mr. Ezra Warburton and Mr. Preserved 
Higgins who, enemies to the last, had interviewed 
Hector individually and separately on the question of 
the ‘‘concessions,” to be met with the reply: “Til 
grant no concessions to anybody. Tamerlanistan will 
be developed. But not with foreign money, nor for 
foreign profit. Through our own work—for our 
own profit!” . . . not many days later, the princess, 
turning to Hector at the end of the daily durbar, said 
that she was a little depressed. 

“About what ?” asked Hector. 

“About Hajji Akhbar Khan, Itizad el-Dowleh. He 
sent thee here—and thus, indirectly, thy brother 1 His 
hand was the hand of benevolence and wisdom from 
the beginning. Yet has he never returned from the 
far places—^has he never explained why he sent thee 
as he did send thee—without telling thee word of the 
ancient prophecy—why he let thee go blindfolded, to 
battle against Fate!” 

And the answer came, a week or two afterwards, 
in a letter delivered by a messenger who came 
mysteriously and disappeared mysteriously. 

It bore neither date nor place, and read as follows : 

280 


/ 

iTHE MATING OF JHE BLADES 281 

“By the will of Allah, the One, the King of Men, the King 
of the Day of Judgment, may this letter be safely delivered into 
the hands of Aziza Nurmahal, Gengizkhani. 

“A prophecy is a prophecy. But a human heart is a human 
heart, a human soul is a human soul, and it is only the dust 
and the grime and the sufferings which purify the truly great. 
Thus, when A 1 Nakia came to me, I gave him but little help. 
Nor did I tell him of the prophecy. For Tamerlanistan needed 
a man who could follow his own mind, unhampered, unclogged, 
by prophecies and traditions. 

‘Tf, thus, A 1 Nakia proved himself to be a good and strong 
man, the prophecy proved true; if he proved himself bad and 
weak, the prophecy proved untrue. 

“And it DID prove true I 

“I am old. Thus wise. Thus, too, stubborn. I shall never, 
therefore, return to Tamerlanistan. For, while my stewardship 
was good in its time and generation, time changes, and customs, 
and conditions. And, being old and stubborn, I would doubt¬ 
less disapprove of many innovations of which A 1 Nakia and 
his brother would approve. Thence would come unhappiness 
and bitterness. Therefore I shall never return. 

“Gossip travels swiftly on wings. It travels East and West, 
North and South, even to the place where I shall live out my 
days. 

“Thus do I know of the double wedding, the double ful¬ 
fillment, and my old heart is happy at the double happiness, 
and just a little sad with envy—the envy of an old and use¬ 
less man who, years, years ago, filled the caverns of his dreams 
and his life with words and deeds of love. 

“May thou, Aziza Nurmahal, and the foreign woman bear 
as many man-children as there are hairs in my beard! 

“Hajji Akhbar Khan, once Itizad el-Dowleh” 


THE END. 


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